Goldstein
by Laazov
Summary: What's a nice Jewish boy like Anthony doing at Hogwarts? Well, for starters, his name isn't really Anthony. Winner of the Fanfiction Booker's Prize 2014.
1. Chapter 1

**JKR owns HP**

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_There shall not be found among you a soothsayer, a diviner, one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a necromancer, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord… (Deuteronomy 18:10-12)_

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If Yehuda Goldstein had gotten to design the calendar, he would have _never ever _arranged for his eleventh birthday to fall right before Pesach, so that he could be on his knees on the kitchen floor, scrubbing and scrubbing at some stupid gunk on the floor of the fridge. His mother and Esti were baking a cake, Adina was washing the windows, Tatty was learning with Sholom, and Brochie and the baby were getting in the way of his cleaning. He was willing to bet none of them even remembered it was his birthday.

Esti leaned over him. "You missed a spot."

"Go away!" he growled.

She pointed a toe at the gunk spot he had spent the last twenty minutes scrubbing. "Me and Mummy are trying to cook the whole Pesach menu from scratch! _Boys_!Can't you even get the fridge clean?"

"Go _away!_" His voice was drowned out by the mixer. She didn't even _hear_ him. He could scrub it all day, probably, and Esti would just say _can't you do anything_? He scowled fiercely at the dirt.

It disappeared.

He rubbed his eyes and stared where the gunk had just been a second ago. Something must be wrong with his eyes.

"YEHUDA!" Esti yelled over the noise of the mixer. "Get the DOOR!"

"I'm _going!_" he shouted. It was his birthday; bad enough he was spending it scrubbing the fridge, you would think Esti could answer the door instead of making him do _everything_.

He scrambled to his feet and stood on tiptoe to look through the peephole, still holding the dishtowel. Tatty always told him to look first in case there was a dangerous person there. It was an old woman who looked vaguely non-Jewish. Probably someone to speak with Tatty or Mummy.

He opened the door. "Hello. Can I help you?"

"Good afternoon," the woman said. She didn't look dangerous, she looked about his Bubby's age, but she was definitely a _goy_, wearing trousers. "Are your parents home?"

"Tatty? Someone's at the door for you." Yehuda opened the door wider. "You can come in if you want. What did you say your name was?"

"Minerva McGonagall," the woman said. "If I could speak with your parents…"

"Yehuda, who was at the door?" His father appeared.

"Good morning, my name is Minerva McGonagall." She extended her hand.

His father looked flustered. "I-I…I'm sorry, I can't—"

"He doesn't shake hands with girls," Yehuda explained.

"Yehuda!" His father regained composure. "I'm sorry, it's a religious thing, nothing personal. Are you here on behalf of an organization?"

"Of sorts," McGonagall said. "I represent a school for children with special gifts, and I'm here about your son Anthony."

His father was already speaking before the guest finished her sentence, ushering her toward the door. "My son is perfectly happy in his school, thank you for your time, and have a wonderful—"

"Special gifts?"

They turned. His mother stood in the kitchen doorway, still in an apron. Potato starch dusted her snood. "Meir, maybe we'd better invite her in."

His father raised his eyebrows quizzically. An unspoken communication seemed to pass between his parents. Finally his father stepped aside. "This is probably better done in private."

Yehuda led the way to his father's study, a small room lined with bookcases full of _sefarim_ that his father knew all the names of. Yehuda wasn't usually allowed in the room, but today seemed to be special. He opened a folding chair for the guest and waited for his father to tell him where to go.

"Sholom, please go help Adina; Mummy and I need the study now." His father gently pushed Sholom toward the door and gestured for McGonagall to sit. Sholom gave Yehuda a curious look as he shut the door behind him.

His mother sat in his father's office chair and took Yehuda onto her lap. For once, he did not protest that he was a big boy. He felt a little scared.

"My name is Minerva McGonagall," McGonagall started again. "I am the deputy headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and I have come to inform you that your son Anthony has been offered a place in our school."

All three Goldsteins flinched as though they had been slapped. "_Witchcraft_?" his father said.

McGonagall turned to his mother. "You seemed to understand what I meant about special gifts. Has your son ever shown…unusual, supernatural abilities? Maybe caused things to disappear, or change color, or to act strangely around him—"

"I don't want to go to some _goyish _school for witches." _Disappear_. He squirmed, avoiding his parents' eyes.

"There was that time…" his father said slowly, "Yehuda, do you remember when Moshe Meyerson said you lit his _peyos _on fire?"

Yehuda flinched, burying his face in his mother's shoulder. "I told you I didn't!" he cried. "I don't know how it happened, he was trying to steal my lunch and I just wanted him to go away, I didn't do _anything_!"

"That's quite typical for a young wizard," McGonagall explained. "The magic acts out in times of stress."

She was calm, she wasn't screaming, she wasn't suspending him for bringing fire to school. He sat up straight, emboldened. "I did it just now, you know. Just before you came."

His parents looked at him. His mother's mouth made a small, silent O.

"I was scrubbing the fridge and I was really annoyed at Esti and it was my birthday. And the thing I was scrubbing—well—it just…disappeared," he finished lamely. Fast cleaning. Was that some kind of magic power?

But McGonagall nodded. "Exactly."

"So you're telling us," his mother said, "that our son has magical powers, and you want him to come to a school we've never heard of—I'm sorry, but how come we haven't heard of this _school for witchcraft and wizardry_?"

"Statute of Secrecy," McGonagall said promptly. "The wizarding community does its best to conceal the existence of magic from Mug—from non-magical people such as yourselves."

A knock at the study door made all of them jump. Adina stuck her head in. "Mummy! Brochie's trying to eat the cake you and Esti were making, and the baby needs a diaper change!"

"Ask Esti, please," his father said. "We're having a private conversation with Mrs. McGonagall here."

"So why does Yehuda get to stay in and not me?"

"Adina, please listen to Tatty," his mother said. Adina slammed the door. They could hear her stomping away.

McGonagall was now holding a large square envelope. "If you were a wizarding family, he'd have received his acceptance letter by owl. Our policy for children from Muggle families is to deliver it by hand and explain what it means." She placed the letter in Yehuda's hands.

_By owl? Muggle? _A million questions swarmed in his mind as he turned the envelope over. It was heavier than he'd guessed, thick and shiny soft beige paper, with a seal of deep red wax embossed with the letter _H_. The front was printed in swirling black calligraphy:

_Mr Anthony Goldstein_

_The Boys' Room _

_10 Finchley Road_

_Golders Green_

_London_

He bit his lip, feeling a spot of hope. "My name's not _Anthony_, so maybe you've got me mixed up with some other Goldstein?"

"No," McGonagall said firmly. "The Book of Acceptance records every magical child born in Britain. There is an eleven-year-old boy named Anthony Goldstein residing at this address, with a place reserved for him at Hogwarts."

"We all call him Yehuda," his mother explained. "Anthony is only his legal name."

His father shot her a look.

"It's okay, Ta. There's no way she's faking this just to get my legal name," Yehuda said slowly. "Look what this letter's addressed to. _The Boys' Room_. How did you know?"

Without waiting for an answer, he opened the envelope, pulling out two sheets of a strangely soft paper that felt like _klaf_. Then he realized why the texture felt so familiar. It _was_ parchment.

He read the first page aloud. "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore, Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sork, Chief Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards. Dear Mr. Goldstein, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July. Yours sincerely, Minerva McGonagall, deputy headmistress." He looked up at her. "This is nutters."

"Yehuda," his mother admonished.

McGonagall handed him the next page. "This is a list of the supplies you'll need."

His eyes grew wider and wider as he read.

_UNIFORM _

_First-year students will require: _

_1\. Three sets of plain work robes (black)_

_2\. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear_

_3\. One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)_

_4\. One winter cloak (black, with silver fastenings) _

_Please note that all pupil's clothes should carry name tags. _

_COURSE BOOKS _

_All students should have a copy of each of the following:_

_The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1), by Miranda Goshawk _

_A History of Magic, by Bathilda Bagshot _

_Magical Theory, by Adalbert Waffling _

_A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration, by Emeric Switch _

_One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, by Phyllida Spore _

_Magical Drafts and Potions, by Arsenius Jigger _

_Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, by Newt Scamander _

_The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, by Quentin Trimble _

_OTHER EQUIPMENT _

_1 wand_

_1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)_

_1 set glass or crystal phials_

_1 telescope_

_1 set brass scales_

_Students may also bring, if they desire, an owl OR a cat OR a toad. _

_PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICK._

Wands, cauldrons, broomsticks—Yehuda folded the page very slowly, avoiding his parents' eyes. This was rapidly devolving into the strangest birthday he had ever had. "It can't be. There's no such thing as magic."

"Do you need proof?" McGonagall asked.

"If you had any, I might ask for it," his father muttered.

"Please don't scream," McGonagall requested. She turned into a cat.

They all screamed, Yehuda loudest of all. Footsteps pounded down the hallway and Sholom burst into the room. "What happened?"

"That woman, Mrs. McGonagall, she…" His father clutched his chest.

"What?" Sholom looked around in confusion.

Yehuda gasped. McGonagall sat calmly on the folding chair as though she had never disappeared. There was no trace of a cat.

"It's okay," he told Sholom. "We just got surprised." He got up and closed the door in his brother's face. "How did you _do_ that?"

"Magic," McGonagall said simply. "You're a wizard, Anthony. You could learn to do it, too."

"But I _can't_ go to Hog…to your school," he said desperately. "All my friends go to Torah Temima, and your school doesn't have Mishnayos or any of that. It's not even _Jewish!_"

"Listen to me, Anthony—"

"_Yehuda_."

"Yahooda, then." He was too distraught to giggle at her mangling of his name. "You set a boy's hair on fire without meaning to. Unless you learn to control your magic, that can happen again. It may even get worse as you get older."

Yehuda shivered. He glanced at his parents.

"Look," his father said finally. "If I accept that all this is true, we'll need to ask our rabbi what to do about this. Sending our son off to a non-Jewish boarding school to learn witchcraft is not a decision we can make lightly."

"The Statute of Secrecy—"

"Let us assume that the Statute of Secrecy was created by wizards," his father said, dipping his thumb in Talmudic sing-song. "We are not wizards, so it follows that we are not bound by your statute of secrecy."

McGonagall opened her mouth, twitched, and closed it, looking annoyed. "What do you intend to ask your rabbi, if I may be so bold?"

"You'll find out."


	2. Chapter 2

**JKR owns HP**

**Disclaimer:** Halachic statements in this chapter have not been evaluated by any rabbinical authority and are not intended as actual halachic guidelines. The story is intended for entertainment purposes only. For any practical concerns, CYLOR.

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_Listen to advice, and accept instruction, so that you may later be wise. Though many thoughts are in the heart of man, the plan of God will be upheld... (Proverbs 19:20-21)_

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Rabbi Zeller's office had been crowded before, but never before had he held an audience with a young wizard, his parents, and the deputy headmistress of a school for witchcraft.

"This is going to sound very strange," Yehuda's father began.

"Trust me," the rabbi said. "I've heard it all."

Yehuda felt very small. He was perched alone in a chair made for someone twice his age, his legs dangling a foot off the floor. There was an uncomfortable knot in his stomach, as though he was somehow in trouble.

His father took a deep breath. "Yehuda is a wizard."

The rabbi blinked, but his face remained composed. He was quiet for a moment. "Go on."

"We noticed it when he was four or five," his mother broke in. "He'd wave his hand over a vase of old flowers, and they'd be fresh again. And then there was a panicky phone call from the school saying something about Moshe Meyerson and fire. We thought there was something strange about it, but we…explained it away."

Rabbi Zeller turned to one person in the room that he did not know from adolescence or earlier. "And I assume this is where you come in, Ms. …?"

"McGonagall."

"She turned up the week before Pesach, saying that Yehuda's a wizard and she's the headmistress of a school for witches," his father said. "They say they have a place for every boy who can do things like this, and they want Yehuda to come."

_Now_ the rabbi reacted, sitting up straight with narrowed eyes. He closed the book in front of him and kissed it. "Tell me about this school, Ms. McGonagall."

"It's a secondary school for magical children—witches and wizards," McGonagall explained. She sat erect in her chair with frightful dignity, as though she spent her every Sunday consulting with rabbis. "Most of our students come from magical families, but a few like Anth—like Mr. Goldstein are simply born this way and only join the wizarding society when they enter Hogwarts. We teach Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, and other magical arts."

"We can't just send him to a random non-Jewish school!" his mother protested. "I'll admit he can do these—strange things, but this is _kishuf_ we're talking about, and in any case it's a _non-Jewish school_! I don't even know why we're here asking this. There's simply no way to justify it."

"Your son set another boy's hair on fire because he felt _scared_," McGonagall shot back. "I don't know how old he was then, but the power doesn't grow _weaker_ with age, you know. He'll be a menace to society by the time he's fifteen!"

Yehuda shivered.

"Fascinating," the rabbi murmured. "This is one of the best _sh'eylos_ I've ever gotten." He lapsed into silence and hummed to himself for a few minutes, stroking his beard. Yehuda squirmed. Into the awkward silence, his father coughed. Even McGonagall looked jittery.

The rabbi seemed to come to a decision. He moved stacks of leather-bound books on his desk until he found a Chumash. He turned a few pages and handed it to Yehuda. "Yehuda, read _pesukim tes_ to _yud-gimel_ for me, please."

"_Ki atah ba el ha'aretz asher Hashem Elokecha nosen lach, lo silmad la'asos ketoavos hagoyim haheim_," Yehuda read, hesitantly. "_Lo yimatze becha maavir b'no u'bito ba'eish, koseim kesamim, meonen u'menachesh u'mechashef—_" his voice wavered, but he steadied himself and kept reading."—_v'chover chaver, v'shoel ov v'yidoni, v'doresh el hameisim_. _Ki toavas Hashem kol oseh eileh, u'veglal hatoevos ha'eileh Hashem Elokecha morish osam mipanecha._"

His father joined in, finishing quietly. "_Tamim tihyeh im Hashem Elokecha_."

"That's the source for prohibiting magic. You also have the pasuk in _Shemos _that explicitly orders the death penalty—_Mishne Torah _says stoning, specifically." He inclined his head toward the headmistress. "You might be familiar with the verse. _Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live_."

She only sat straighter, staring at the rabbi with a look of deep distrust. Yes, wizardry was certainly familiar with that verse.

Yehuda's mother shifted uncomfortably. Rabbi Zeller leaned over the boy and pointed to the small print underneath the verses themselves. "Here, Yehuda—read what the Ramban says on this _pasuk_. Start from _V'ata dah_."

Yehuda ran his finger along the tiny letters until he found it. "_V'atah, dah v'haven b'inyanei hakeshafim: ki haBorei Yisbarach, ka'asher bara hakol yesh m'ayin..." _He squinted, stumbling over the difficult words. It was a long and complicated Ramban, the kind he did not learn in school, and his face burned with each mispronunciation. When he finished at last, he closed the Chumash and pressed a gentle kiss to the leather cover before passing it back to the rabbi.

"If you don't mind translating," McGonagall said dryly. "Not all of us understand Hebrew."

"Well, the _pasuk _says that Jews can't practice sorcery like the non-Jews do, and we should be—whole? Pure?" The boy turned to the rabbi. "How do you say _tamim_?"

"'Whole' is fine," Rabbi Zeller said. "There's no perfect translation. Go on."

"We should be whole with God. And the Ramban—I think he's Nachmanides, in English—says the main problem with using sorcery is that you're changing the world as Hashem created it. So if a kind of magic follows the laws of nature, it doesn't count under this _pasuk_, and you're not _chayav misa_. Right?" He looked at his father, who patted his back approvingly.

The rabbi cleared his throat. "Generally, one is _chayav misa _for practicing magic, but the Gemara in Shabbos says that one can learn it for the sake of learning and understanding, not in order to practice." And one could study it in order to be able to judge and execute accused sorcerers, he thought, but did not say. "Reb Meir, have you learned Sanhedrin?"

"What, Rabbi Yehoshua and the cucumbers? I remember it vaguely."

"Yes, exactly. That _mishna _makes a distinction between an actual sorcerer and a very good illusion—only the actual sorcery would be liable for the death penalty. So, Ms. McGonagall, is the magic you teach a true manipulation of the fabric of the universe? Does it actually override the rules of nature? Or does it give the mere illusion of change?"

"She turned into a cat," Yehuda mumbled.

McGonagall's lips twitched in something almost resembling a smile. "I assure you, it was no illusion."

"There is room to be lenient," the rabbi said quietly. "The Moreh Nevuchim goes into great depth, analyzing the different types of magic and which ones are forbidden, but I'd have to know many technical details about the school's curriculum to know where each subject would fit in. But even aside from the issues inherent in sending such a young child to a non-Jewish boarding school, there's no reason to place him in a situation where he violates a _lo sa'aseh_ every day."

Yehuda swung his legs back and forth. They were talking about him as though he wasn't even there. "But aren't I going to do a _lo sa'aseh_ anyway, even if I'm not in that school? I did magic stuff by accident before."

"Such as nearly murdering another boy," McGonagall said acidly. "If I may interrupt this conversation. As I said earlier, magic uncontrolled only grows more and more dangerous with time. Next year's list of students contains a boy who accidentally sicced a boa constricter on his cousin, and I know of a girl who—" She stopped, her mouth forming a thin line. "I know of a girl who killed her own mother in an outburst she couldn't control."

Yehuda gasped. His father looked sick.

"Well," the rabbi said, after a long silence, "that certainly puts a new perspective on things." He rested his head in his hands, not moving. Around his desk, four guests watched him. The tick of the clock became deafening. Yehuda's mother put a protective hand on his back, but he felt it trembling.

Even his parents were afraid.

When the rabbi finally spoke, his voice was very, very steady. "The question is whether he will _definitely _become a danger to others, and whether that danger will be _pikuach nefesh_—life-threatening," he translated, glancing at McGonagall.

"Certainly you can't violate a mitzvah for a _maybe!_" his father said, outraged.

"Let me ask you, Reb Meir," the rabbi said. "Is it _muttar_ to be vaccinated for a life-threatening disease on Shabbos? It depends, right? You aren't actually being _cured_ of a life-threatening disease; you're merely preventing a potentially fatal situation from ever developing at all. It's just a _maybe_. A number of sources do in fact rule that you may not."

"That would mean he _can't_ go to the school," Yehuda's mother observed.

The rabbi held up one finger. "Correct, but wait one moment. That applies under normal circumstances. But when there is an actual epidemic, and the chances of contracting something life-threatening are much greater, you are not only permitted but _required_ to be vaccinated as soon as possible—even if that means violating Shabbos."

"But that's just Shabbos," his father protested. "Where does it say that he's required to learn magic?"

The rabbi barely paused. "Well, you have the Shach." He stood up and scanned the shelves, pulled out one book and opened it. "Right. He quotes the Maharshal here. If someone is ill as a result of magic, he permits the use of a non-Jewish sorcerer—the need for healing overrides _tamim tihyeh_. According to the esteemed headmistress, if Yehuda does _not_ learn to control magic, he can potentially put himself or others in great _makom sakanah_. In which case he _must_ learn to control it, and control it well."

The ruling fell like a bomb in the middle of the study.

"No," his father said, shaking his head. He jumped to his feet. "No, there's no way, I refuse to allow this—"

"I'm afraid you must," the rabbi said quietly. He beckoned to Yehuda. "If the adults would be excused for a moment, I'd like to speak with Yehuda alone. You can wait in the sitting room; my daughter will bring you a tea."

The door closed behind them. Yehuda was frozen in his seat, his heart pounding. He tried not to think about his parents alone with McGonagall, or what the rabbi's seven-year-old thought of her strange guests as she served them tea.

"Come here, Yehuda," the rabbi said.

He stood up shakily, walking to the other side of the desk. "Do I really have to do this?" he whispered. Tears stung his eyes, and he lowered his head so the rabbi wouldn't see him crying like a baby.

"Shh, Yehuda, it will be fine. You're a smart boy. Let me show you something." He opened one of the books on his desk. "This is the _daf_ I was talking about with your father, comparing illusions and real magic. But look what it says right after that." He ran his finger down the lines and stopped. "Read this."

"_Ein od milvado_," Yehuda read shakily. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "There is no one else but Him. Rabbi Chanina said: 'Even through sorcery.' A woman once tried to take dirt from under Rabbi Chanina's feet for the purpose of sorcery. He said to her, 'If you succeed in your attempts, go and try, but _there is no one else but Him_'—Rabbi Zeller, I don't understand."

"You don't?" The rabbi raised an eyebrow. "He acknowledged that her magic had power. But who makes that power work?"

The boy's eyes widened.

"Exactly. There may be magic, and we might be forbidden to use it, because of _tamim tihyeh im Hashem Elokecha_. But Hashem created the laws of nature, and He created ways to override them. _He _is the one in charge, and He's commanded other things too—like protecting our lives and health. And your job, right now, is to learn to be a good wizard and control your magical powers well. You can be _tamim_ with Hashem by _v'nishmartem me'od es nafshoseichem_."

For the first time in what felt like years, Yehuda smiled. He let out a long breath. The sun was breaking through the clouds.

"Now, let's go see how your parents are doing."

In the sitting room, McGonagall stood in a corner, looking utterly incongruous and gingerly drinking tea. His parents hadn't touched theirs, and were engrossed in a lively argument. "What are we supposed to tell everyone?" his mother was protesting. "Our family, all the people we know—how do we pull him out of school without sounding like _meshugenes_?"

The rabbi's eyes twinkled. "I don't know much about magic," he said. "But I suspect Ms. McGonagall can help you out."

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_**Note:**__ In this story, Yehuda/Anthony Goldstein, his parents, and their rabbi are Ashkenazi Jews of Lithuanian yeshiva affiliation. Hebrew is transliterated accordingly._


	3. Chapter 3

**JKR owns HP**

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_The righteous thrive like a date palm and grow as the cedars of Lebanon; rooted in the Lord's house, they will blossom in the courtyard of our God (Psalm 92:12-13)_

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Yehuda and his father emerged from the Charing Cross underground station and set about trying to find an invisible street named Diagon Alley. There would be an invisible pub between a bookstore and a record shop, McGonagall had said, and they'd need to ask someone to let them in. It all felt like something out of a spy novel.

A very frustrating spy novel. It was a rainy weekday in May, the streets dotted with people who have nowhere else to be on a Tuesday midday. After twenty minutes walking up and down the length of Charing Cross Road, Yehuda's feet ached, and there was no invisible pub to be found. His father double-checked the scribbled notes from their last meeting with the headmistress.

"Should be right here," he muttered. "Funny sort of name, the Leaky Cauldron."

"It's named Leaky Cauldron?" Yehuda looked up. "But that's right here!" He pointed across the street at a bookstore.

"That's a bookstore," his father said patiently.

"No, _look_—it says The Leaky Cauldron!" He grabbed his father's hand and darted into the street.

"_Yehuda!_" At the last second, his father pulled him back onto the curb. But as his hand touched his son's, something changed in his field of vision. He saw the pub, clear and solid as a real building, as though he had simply overlooked a storefront sandwiched between two others that had been adjacent just moments before. He dropped Yehuda's hand and squinted. If he hadn't just seen it with his own eyes, he'd never have known it was there. It was oddly like staring at something out of the corner of your eye, though he was looking directly at it.

"Tatty?" Yehuda's hand wormed its way into his, and the building was plain as day once again.

He shook his head, unbelieving. "Sorry. Let's go."

Yehuda had never been inside a pub before. There was one a few blocks from his school, but they always just lowered their heads and walked faster as they passed, because it was full of _goyim_ getting drunk, that's what his rebbi always said. A bell tinkled as they entered, but as Yehuda's eyes cleared he saw that there were no drunk _goyim_ inside. It was, in fact, completely empty but for an old man behind the counter, wiping it down with a rag.

"Afternoon," the old man said, bobbing his head at them.

Yehuda's father cleared his throat. "Ahh…we're looking for a Di-a-gon Alley." He pronounced the words gingerly, as though they might bite him.

"Diagon Alley, hey?" The bartender moved around the counter to squint at them suspiciously. "This look like an alley to you?"

"N-no, but—"

"How'd you find this place, anyway?"

Yehuda found his voice. "Please, sir, Ms. McGonagall told us to come here and ask how to get to Diagon Alley. I need to buy supplies for…school."

"Ah, Minerva sent you, did she?" This seemed to placate the man. "Well, I can't just send anyone off into Diagon Alley. Lemme see your Hogwarts letter."

His father fumbled for the papers and presented the invitation with its deep red seal. The man studied it solemnly for a full minute. "Right, then. Come along."

Yehuda's heart started to pound with excitement as they wended between tables and bar stools to a nondescript door at the back of the pub. But there was no invisible street outside, only a tiny cement yard surrounded by a brick wall, with dingy grass forcing its way out of cracked concrete. A dented garbage bin in the corner was swarming with flies.

Yehuda glanced at his father. For the thousandth time he wondered if it was all a huge, elaborate joke.

The old man faced the brick wall. "Well, before you go, can I get you a drink?"

"No, thank you," said his father automatically. "Unless you're kosher?"

"What's that?" The old man cupped a hand to his ear. "Never mind then, let's be off." He drew a thin wooden stick from his sleeve and tapped on one of the bricks, halfway up the wall.

Yehuda's first thought was this was nutters, it was all nutters. But there was a groan, and the sound of shifting earth, and the bricks began to slide: left, right, up, down, tucking away behind each other into empty space, and a window blossomed in the brick wall, growing to frame a narrow cobblestone street lined with stores, zigzagging away into the distance.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley," the old man said proudly.

Yehuda's father's mouth hung open, speechless. "But…how…?"

"Oh, you'll need to change money first thing," the old man announced, watching their shock with satisfaction. "Ask someone for Gringotts Bank—we don't use the pound sterling here. You'll want Flourish and Blotts last, so you aren't lugging around a pile of books all day. And don't bother with Twillfit &amp; Tatting's, Madam Malkin'll get you exactly the same thing for half the price."

"How is this _here_?" Yehuda finally burst out. "It's the back of a street, how does it even make _sense_?"

"Magic, my boy," the old man said. He knuckled Yehuda's yarmulke playfully. "It's a different kind of sense."

* * *

There were so many new things, his head swiveled back and forth desperately trying to see everything. His father clung to the supplies list like a rope of sanity in a whirlpool of crazy—which spoke wonders about the levels of craziness in Diagon Alley, since the supplies list itself was fairly bizarre.

Gringotts first, where tiny gnarled men exchanged two hundred pounds for them. They spoke in accented English and there was something about them that made Yehuda feel unsafe, in the presence of a caged wild animal. His father weighed the sack of wizard money in his hand and then pulled out a gold coin about the diameter of Eliyohu's yarmulke. He gave a bemused smile, and shrugged.

"Reckon it's real gold?" Yehuda asked.

"Do not imply that Gringotts uses adulterated materials," snapped the tiny man behind the counter.

Yehuda flinched. "S-sorry, I just…"

"Do you have any further business here?" He spat the word _business_ as though it were poisonous.

His father stepped to the side, shielding Yehuda from the man's sight. "No, we're finished, thank you." He took Yehuda's hand and half-dragged him across the marble floors and back outside.

They went to buy a wand next, because it seemed important. He had been dreading this, his first step over the border and into real _kishuf_, but his father didn't flinch as he steered him through the doorway. Boxes were stacked against the walls, rather like a shoe store, if the shoe store was dimly lit, extremely tiny, and covered in dust.

Yehuda sneezed.

"Gesundheit." A stooped, white-haired man emerged from the shadows. "Garrick Ollivander. You'll be here for your first wand?"

"Yes sir."

Ollivander shook his hand, his grip surprisingly strong. "And you are?"

"Yeh—Anthony Goldstein." What if they needed to match up his name with the school records, or something?

"Muggle-born, are you?" The man's gaze rested for a moment on a spot just above Yehuda's hairline. "That is, no other wizards in your family."

"Yes sir," he said again. Deliberately, he adjusted his yarmulke and tucked his peyos behind his ears.

"Well, then, let's find a wand for you." Ollivander scanned the rows of boxes. "You see, every wand has a personality, so it may take a few tries until you find the one that chooses you. I use over sixty types of wood, but mainly the same three cores. Now, what hand do you write with, Yeh-Anthony Goldstein?"

"He's right-handed," his father said.

Ollivander pulled a box out of one stack, which promptly tumbled over.

"Cherry wood and phoenix feather, nine inches, quite rigid. Nice and consistent." Ollivander held out his hand. Yehuda hesitated. He sent a sideways look at his father, wrapped his fingers gingerly around the base of the wand, and gave it a tentative wave. It felt exactly like waving around a nine-inch wooden stick.

"No, no, that won't do." Ollivander snatched the wand. "Try this: linden and phoenix feather, excellent for defense, eight inches, reasonably springy."

He waved it. Nothing happened. He hadn't even opened his mouth when Ollivander grabbed the wand and replaced it with another. "Hazel and nymph hair, eight and three-quarter inches, superb at charms work, try it—"

Nothing. Nor with magnolia and dragon heartstring, eleven and one-half inches, swishy. He was beginning to wonder if there was no wand at all for him. Maybe the magic had gone away, and he could be a regular boy again.

"Here, calabash and unicorn hair, fifteen inches, springy. No? Ah, give this a try—cedar and unicorn hair, ten and one-half inches, nice and pliable, go on—"

He knew. He felt a glow in his hands as he took the wand and somehow he knew it was this, and a shower of sparks blossomed from the tip when he waved it. He didn't gasp, wasn't surprised: it felt as though he had known it all along.

"Oh, well done!" Mr. Ollivander cheered. Yehuda glanced up just in time to see his father plant a determinedly proud look on his face. "Cedar, excellent for protective spells. Yes, of course, I should have seen that. The wand chooses the wizard, of course, but cedar…well, obviously. That will be seven Galleons—the big gold ones, yes—and you take good care of that."

He felt different now that he had a wand. He wasn't touching it, it was safe in its thin cardboard box in Tatty's bag, but he could feel the warmth in the center of his chest, the sort of soft completeness he felt watching the Chanukah candles. It was still _kishuf_ (no, no, _tamim tihyeh_, be whole by guarding your health) but he walked with a new spring in his step.

They bought uniforms, letting the woman measure him and recommend robe styles as he stood awkwardly on the stool. His father nodded obediently to her every suggestion, but stopped short when the woman offered to sell him a package of the white button-down shirts she said were popular among Hogwarts students.

"That's all right, I think we'll pass on that," his father laughed.

"Are you certain? He'll want quite a few, the laundry's only done every two weeks. These are what all the children wear. Do you want him to—stand out?" Her eyes flicked up to his yarmulke.

Yehuda fidgeted, and the seamstress heaved a sigh as she re-pinned the fabric. "No, ma'am," he said. "He just meant I already have a load of white shirts."

They did buy a plain V-neck sweater, the sort that Torah Temima boys would laugh at, but things were different now, it was another school. He'd need a school tie, the woman said, but for some reason he could only order it once he got there, and it would arrive within the week and then he'd look just like the others.

He wasn't sure he wanted to look just like the others.

As the Leaky Cauldron bartender had advised, they stopped off at Flourish and Blott's last. It was easy enough to find his course books, as they were organized by grade level. Eight textbooks, each with a stranger title than the next. Had he not been so tense, he might have been curious as he stacked _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_ on top of _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1_. Reeling slightly under their weight, he staggered in the direction of the counter.

His father was flipping absently through a copy of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. _"Glad we've got all this taken care of. We'll have to check Torah Treasures later, see what _sefarim_ to get you—Yehuda?"

He had let out a strangled gasp, and immediately fell silent, but his father noticed.

"Yehuda, you didn't think we were going to send you off without any _sefarim_, did you?"

His silence confirmed it, but he didn't trust his voice to speak without breaking. "I thought…I thought…"

What _had _he thought? His throat was too choked to explain, and he did not know the words for what he had felt: that they _would_ send him without _sefarim_ because after the grave discussion in Rabbi Zeller's office, heavy sighs and meaningful looks aimed at the problem that was him, he did not belong to his family anymore, and he was going to a _goyish _school and that made him a _goy_.

"Let's buy these and go on home." His father set the pile of books on the counter and thrust a fistful of random coins at the cashier. "I think we've had a long day."

Yehuda walked slowly back into the street, his arms weighed down with the day's purchases. He sat down on a bench, scowling fiercely so no tears would come, and hiccupped miserably as he waited for his father.

"Well, have we got everything?" His father held the supplies list, talking in that falsely cheerful voice they all used when they wanted Brochie to forget whatever she was tantruming about. "Work robes, yes. Pointed hat, yes. Gloves, yes. Winter cloak, yes. Books, we've got them all. Cauldron, vials, telescope and scales?"

Yehuda wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeve. "And the wand."

"Of course, mustn't forget the wand. Students may bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad," his father read dramatically. They looked at each other. "Would you like an owl _or_ a cat _or_ a toad?"

"No," Yehuda laughed. He stood up, his face clear. He smiled, meeting his father's eyes at last. "Thanks, Ta."


	4. Chapter 4

**JKR owns HP**

**Note: **This chapter contains swear words.

* * *

_The bashful cannot learn. (Avos 2:6)_

* * *

Mercifully, no one said anything to him about his unexplained absence on Tuesday. It was almost June and his class was caught up in exams and secondary schools and didn't give too much thought to the quiet boy in the fourth row who Meyerson hated.

"_Amar mar_, we said before," the rebbi chanted. "_Hashoel sefer Torah meichaveiro_, if one borrows a sefer torah from his friend, _harei zu lo yashilenu l'acher_, one cannot lend it to his friend. _Fregt_ the Gemara, _mai irya sefer Torah_? Why do we say specifically a sefer Torah? _Afilu kol mili nami_, even all other things you borrow you can't lend to your friend, and how do we know that when one borrows an item he cannot lend it to his friend?"

"But what if it's not his friend?" Meyerson burst out.

_It means any person_, Yehuda thought, but didn't say. _We've been using it to mean any person all year._

"Where it says _chaveiro_, it doesn't specifically need to be an actual friend," the rebbi answered. "Please try to follow along, Moshe. We're using _chaveiro_ to mean any person you might borrow something from."

_I knew that_.

"_D'amar Rav Shimon ben Lakeish ka'an, _for Reish Lakeish said here,_ shana Rebbi: Ein hasho'el rashai leh'ashiel v'ein hasocher rashai lehaskir, _Rebbi taught us that the borrower cannot lend it to someone else, and someone who rents an item cannot rent it to someone else. _Enfert_ the Gemara, _sefer Torah itztricha ley_, we said sefer Torah because this is a chiddush, that even a sefer Torah you can't lend out. _Mahu diseima nicha ley l'inish d'teiavid mitzvah bmamonei_, one is happy for someone to do a mitzvah with their money, _ka mashma lan—_" A light knock at the door cut him off. "Come in."

The headmaster, Rabbi Frank, entered. As one, the class rose to their feet. He motioned for them to sit. "Pardon me, Rabbi Kaufman. May I borrow Yehuda Goldstein for a moment?"

Twenty-six heads instantly swiveled in his direction. His face was hot as he closed and kissed his Gemara and walked down the aisle, avoiding Meyerson's foot stuck in the aisle. The door closed behind him.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Goldstein," the headmaster said. "We missed you last week. Would you like to tell me about that?"

He gulped, fishing for an explanation. "I had to—go. My father—" He was stammering, but Rabbi Frank did not bail him out, just watched him with calm, inquiring eyes. "My father had to take me—shopping." He hated how _girly_ that sounded, the headmaster would never, ever believe him. "For—you know. For school."

There was a long, pregnant pause.

"Well, if your father felt it necessary, I'm not going to question your parents' judgment," the headmaster said. "But there's one more thing I wanted to discuss. I was looking over your class's secondary school applications and I couldn't help but notice that you didn't apply to any of the local schools. Do you have plans for next year?"

_Oh, no_. "America," he blurted, then stopped. He couldn't remember the cover story McGonagall had given them.

"Do go on, Mr. Goldstein."

He was doomed.

"I—I'm going to school in America. Not Yesodey. A different school. You never heard of it." He was babbling, and the headmaster just looked at him, waiting. "It's in America. It's—small. Yeah, it's quite small. So probably no one from Torah Temima ever went there."

"I see."

He blushed, feeling very small, and stared at the floor.

"This isn't going to fly," Rabbi Frank said. "To be honest, I'm not believing a word of it. Yehuda, you know we all only want what's best for you. If you don't have plans for next year, it's nothing to be ashamed of."

He nodded painfully, still studying the tiles under his shoes.

The headmaster clapped him on the shoulder. "I'm going to have a talk with your parents and get to the bottom of this. In the meantime, you can go back to your lessons."

And just like that, he walked away.

_Baruch Hashem. _How had he gotten so lucky?

Recess had already begun. Hopefully, his classmates would be engrossed their usual game that involved screaming and tackling each other and not much else. With any luck, he'd skirt the edge of the brawl and make it back to his seat where he could spend the fifteen minutes quietly looking into a _sefer_, or maybe play a game of Spit with Danziger—

But he had no such luck. They were dismissed but still putting _sefarim _away, and the _click_ of the door closing was somehow the loudest sound in the room.

"Hey, Goldstein's back!" Sandler said. "Goldstein! What'd Frank want from you?"

"_Rabbi_ Frank," Levitt corrected.

"Probably tried to burn down his house or something."

"Aw, come _on_, Meyerson."

"All right, then, maybe he tried to burn down the _school_," Hillman suggested. The four or five boys around him all burst out laughing. Even if he hadn't been the target of the joke, Yehuda would still not have found this funny.

"Na, you guys are all way off," Wasserman broke in. He pushed his way to the forefront. "I know the story. My father said he never got an application from you, Goldstein. What's up with that?"

"Never got an application?" Meyerson said gleefully. "You mean Goldstein's not going to Yesodey? So where _are _you going, Goldstein? Day school? Lubavitch?"

"Probably going to To-_rat_ Eh-_met_ with Snapir and Abulafia," someone snickered in exaggerated iamb, and they all burst out laughing again. "Or maybe they finally sent him off to state school where he belongs."

"Nu, are you going to tell us?" Wasserman asked. "If you're not going to Yesodey, where _are_ you going?"

Yehuda opened his mouth, but his mind was blank and the words would not come.

"Oh, lay off him already." Danziger, finally, came to his defense. "It's none of your business where he goes next year. Maybe your father doesn't have to tell you everything, Wasserman, you're just a great _yenta_."

They all seemed to wilt, and the crowd softened just enough for him to push through it to his desk. At least at the new school he wouldn't have to deal with Wasserman and Meyerson. At the new sc—oh, all right, at _Hogwarts_ nobody would know he'd once set another boy's hair on fire quite by accident.

Wait. Had he just thought the new school was a _good _thing?

* * *

_August 31_

"Well, tomorrow's the big day, isn't it?" Rabbi Zeller asked. Yehuda grimaced. His father forced a cheerful smile. "Tell me what you've got planned."

At this, his father lit up. "Well, we're planning on covering _Perek Hakones _in Bava Kama, and _hilchos Shabbos_ in _Kitzur Shulchan Aruch_, and of course a little weekly _parsha_. The school doesn't have phones, so it'll be all by mail. That McGonagall woman said their library's got _some _sefarim, but he's got almost a whole library in his trunk just in case."

Yehuda fidgeted. He should be glad his father had put together a curriculum for him, but he was disappearing tomorrow into a great unknown void and there was a snake writhing in the pit of his stomach.

"How are you holding up, Yehuda?" the rabbi asked.

He forced himself into painful awareness. "I—uh—well, I'm all packed and everything. Nervous, I guess."

"Nervous?"

"You can't blame him," his father blurted. "It's a new school—"

"Some boys in my class were making fun of me," Yehuda interrupted. "They all know I didn't apply to Yesodey. I met Breuer in _shul _and he acted like I wasn't even there. Danziger said they're all betting I'm going off the _derech. _The last week of school someone said I belong in state school."

"But surely you realize they don't know the whole story," Rabbi Zeller said, ignoring Yehuda's father's gasps of outrage. "They see little bits and pieces, and put together the most exciting story they can think of. Why let it get to you?"

"Because they're _right_! It's not a Jewish school. They might make fun of me here, but they're all _Jewish_. I learn Gemara and mishnayos and everything, and everyone—it's kind of like we're all one family. We all do the same things, we all _know_ the same things." Words tumbled faster, desperate to make himself understood. "And there, it's not Jewish, I'll be different and I'll be the only one, and I'll _feel_ like the only one, it'll feel like _I'm_ the one who's doing something wrong. I don't want to go off the _derech_—"

"Yehuda!" said his father in horror.

The rabbi shot him a look. "Actually, your son is quite right, Reb Meir."

"He's—_what_?"

"He's right. He's going into an environment that at _best_ will be completely neutral and unsupportive of his being Jewish. Environment is everything. _Eini dor ela b'makom Torah _and all that. There's a reason we open organizations dedicated to paying the yeshiva tuitions of state school children—"

Yehuda cut him off, unwilling to have the rabbi go off topic. "But what can I _do_?" he said desperately.

"You can ask questions," Rabbi Zeller said.

He stopped short. Whatever answer he had been expecting, it was not this. "Sorry—what?"

"I'm expecting a letter from you every week," the rabbi said. "I want you to ask me ten questions every week. They can be halacha or hashkafa or Gemara, whatever. Your father is taking care of your academics, and he's a _talmid chacham_, so I won't get involved there. But every boy needs a rabbi. Especially a boy like you. I want you to get used to asking questions. _Asei lecha rav_, Yehuda."

He finished the _mishna_ with a mischievous smile. "_U'knei lecha chaver_?"

The rabbi looked startled, but laughed. "Well, I'll admit I'm curious about what goes on in a school for wizards, so I suppose my interest isn't _strictly _halachic…"

Yehuda's father cleared his throat. "Excuse me, Rabbi Zeller. Are you encouraging him to question—things?"

"There's nothing wrong with questions, if you have good answers," Rabbi Zeller said firmly. He pulled a notepad toward him and scribbled. "Here—take my address. Write me some good ones. I expect great things from you, Yehuda."

He shook Yehuda's hand, like a grownup, and gave him a _bracha_ and a hug, shook Yehuda's father's hand, and sent them off. They didn't talk much on the way home. In his pocket, Yehuda's sweaty hand turned the rabbi's address over and over. He didn't stop to say hello to his mother, but headed straight to his room, where Sholom sat on his bed engrossed in a _sefer_ and dead to the world, and Esti was carefully writing his name on his trunk in fat permanent marker letters three inches tall.

Panic shot up his spine. "Hey, get your hands off my trunk!" He scoured his memory, desperately hoping that he had packed the set of _machzorim_ on top of the wizard's robes, _tzitzis_ on top of course books with strange names. If she opened his trunk, he would have nothing to say.

To his relief, she backed off, dramatically lifting her hands in surrender and dropping the marker. She flopped down on Sholom's bed. "Relax, I'm not touching your precious trunk. So, ready for your big trip to America?"

America. Right.

"You're so lucky. I always wanted to go to camp in America, but Mummy and Tatty never let. Said it was too far away to be without supervision. But I guess for yeshiva it's different. Funny that the first of us to go to America is our little baby brother, huh, Sholom?"

Sholom looked up, finally appearing to notice his siblings' presence. "Get off my bed," he muttered, turning the page.

"I'm your big sister, don't tell me what to do."

"By not even two years." He looked back into the _sefer_.

A knock at the door. "Anyone home? I have your laundry for you, boys." Their mother entered, balancing a stack of folded shirts. She laid it carefully on the bureau and glanced up. "Oh, good, you're all here. Stay a minute, Esti—I was hoping I'd catch all of you."

"Should I get Adina?" Esti offered.

"No, I meant only the big kids. Tatty and I have a…bit of news for all of you." She was smiling, almost shining; her tone even made Sholom drag his eyes from the _sefer_, and Yehuda instantly knew what she was going to say before the words left her lips. "We're expecting a baby."

"_What_? No way," Esti said, with a dubious glance aimed at her mother's midsection.

Their mother laughed. "The baby's not due until the end of February, but with Yehuda going off to—America tomorrow, we reckoned now was the best time to tell you."

A wide grin split Esti's face. "So…seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Baruch Hashem," Sholom said primly, and returned to his _sefer_.

Yehuda could only stare in wide-eyed, glowing wonder. Adina's hopscotch rhyme echoed in his mind: _Tatty-Mummy-Esti-Sholom-Yehuda-Adina-Brochie-Eliyohu—Goldstein!_ He tried to think it again, only with some other name stuck in between _Eliyohu_ and _Goldstein_.He couldn't, the names blended together so familiarly, but they had before Eliyohu was born, and they would again, and he wouldn't even be here when the baby was born, it was still happy though, he was happy, he _was_, but...oh, why did Hogwarts have to come into _everything_? "Brilliant," he squeaked finally.

They had chicken stir-fry and rice for dinner. His mother said it was because he was leaving tomorrow. He wouldn't have noticed: he was too nervous to eat, and when he did, he felt the texture of the food in his mouth but there was no taste. A small smile played across Esti's face the whole meal, and Adina demanded to know what was so funny.

When his father and Sholom went to _ma'ariv_, he went to take a bath. His mother said he ought to go to sleep early because he had a flight to catch the next morning. _He_ knew it was really a train—the ticket was in Tatty's wallet—but they would keep up the pretense to the last moment.

He lay in bed facing the wall, his eyes wide open and his heart pounding in his chest. Tomorrow, in the morning, he would leave and get on a train with hundreds of non-Jewish teenagers to a school of _kishuf_, and his mother was going to have a baby. Nothing could be more right, and yet nothing could ever be more wrong.

* * *

He was at Hogwarts. He was surrounded by boys, all of them much bigger than him, and his hair was on fire. His mouth opened in a wordless scream and he knew he should move to put it out but his hands were stuck at his sides. He was onstage and they were all staring at him and his _peyos_ were burning up.

"What's the matter?" said the biggest boy, removing his cigarette to blow out a long cloud of smoke. He looked kind of how Yehuda imagined Moshe Meyerson would look, if he was black and had blue spiked hair and earrings. "Didn't you ever put someone's hair on fire? That's what we do at Hogwarts. All day, we set each other's hair on fire."

"Don't forget we also say swear words," added a boy wearing a nose ring, very cheerfully. "Bloody buggering sodding hell."

"What's that thing on your head?"

"What's your name? Anthony, Anthony, Anthony. That's a nice _goyish_ name! You'll fit in perfect here! We're all _goyim_!"

"No, my name is _Yehuda!_" he shouted desperately. They didn't seem to hear him. He screamed his throat raw. "_My name is YEHUDA!_"

Immediately everyone fell silent.

"_Yehuda_?" said the biggest boy, who now had a swastika tattooed on his forehead. "You're Jewish then."

"We're all anti-Semites here," nose ring boy explained brightly, "so that means we have to kill you!"

He woke up in a panic, his heart racing. It took a few fuzzy seconds to realize it was a dream, and he blearily checked to make sure his _peyos_ were still there before falling back into an uneasy sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**JKR owns HP**

**Belated thanks **to beta reader Achos Laazov.

**Disclaimer: **Opinions expressed are those of the characters and not their author. For the kosher status of various species of berries, as always, CYLOR.

* * *

_And [God] said to Avram: Know that your children will be strangers in a land not their own. (Genesis 15:13)_

* * *

The goodbyes that morning had taken so long that Yehuda had wondered if they would ever end, but they reached King's Cross with plenty of time to spare, and unloaded his luggage onto a cart.

His father pulled out the ticket and studied it. "There's no such platform as nine and three-quarters, but it's bound to be somewhere between nine and ten—I'm sure not even magic can mess with math—so let's head over there and see if we can figure it out."

They pushed his cart in silence to a bustling double platform, an empty track nine on the left, a train idling on track ten. Halfway down was a big brick pillar, and nothing else. Nine and three-quarters was nowhere to be seen.

"Do you see anything?" his father asked. "Perhaps it's like that pub on Charings Cross, where only you can see it."

Yehuda studied the crowd carefully. Most were suit-clad businesspeople striding with attaché cases, a few casually dressed day travelers scattered among them. Further down, he thought he saw more trolleys, more children. He pulled his father's hand and tugged him down the platform, the cart careening from side to side. Yes, there were definitely more children—and was that an _owl_ in the birdcage? He watched, his forehead furrowed.

"I've got it," Yehuda said. "They're all just walking straight into the wall. That's all you've got to do."

"What?" His father looked dubious, but as they watched, an old woman, hat topped with a stuffed bird, wrapped her arms around a round-faced bareheaded little boy and a luggage trolley, strode headlong at the barrier, and vanished. "Never mind. I'm convinced."

He leaned against the cart, small against his father, and walked, faster and faster, and the bricks loomed up in front of him and suddenly his vision blurred and he was standing beside his father with the trolley in front of a great steam-belching red engine lettered _The Hogwarts Express._

His father's mouth formed into a small _o_. Platforms nine and ten were nowhere in sight. "Well," he said finally, "let's find you a place to sit."

They tried to get the trunk into the first car, but a pompous-looking redheaded boy blocked their way. "Percy Weasley. Hogwarts prefect. Pleasure to meet you—"

Yehuda let the open end of the question hang. He couldn't decide what his name was today.

To his credit, Percy Weasley recovered quickly. "These two compartments are reserved for prefects, but you can join the next one, there's another first-year there." Two teenagers lifted his trunk onto the train and steered it into a corner. Yehuda followed timidly. Another trunk stood there, but the car was empty. He ducked back out. His father was thanking the boys. He stood quietly beside his father, watching children and parents push trunks, wave goodbye. None of them wore yarmulkes, their bare heads looking almost naked, and none of them save Percy wore white button-down shirts.

"You should go," his father said quietly. "The train'll be leaving in three minutes."

Faced with the sudden reality—he had to _get on this train _and just _leave—_his throat choked. "T-t-ta. I don't want to…"

His father laid trembling hands over his head, as he did on Friday nights, as he did before Yom Kippur. "_Yesimcha Elokim k'Efrayim uk'Menashe_," he murmured God make you like them, Jewish children faithful in a foreign land. "_Yevarechecha Hashem v'yishmerecha. Ya'er Hashem panav eilecha viy'chuneka. Yisa Hashem panav eilecha v'yaseim lecha shalom._" Yehuda saw tears in his father's eyes, his staid, unemotional father, before he pulled him tight and enfolded him in a hug. _May God bless you and watch over you…_

"Thanks, Ta," he whispered. And as he did on Friday nights and before Yom Kippur, Yehuda kissed his father's hand. It took all his strength to tear himself away, climb aboard the train, and settle into the compartment and press his face to the glass, waving to his father. Then the train began to move, faster and faster, rounding a corner, and the station was gone and houses were flashing past. Tears pricked his eyes.

"Homesick already?"

He tore his eyes from the window to see his seatmate watching him curiously. "I'm guessing you're Muggle-born—first wizard in your family, are you?" He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. "Oh, well, I'm not, my mum's a witch. But my dad's a Muggle, so he doesn't know much about this either. What's your name?"

"Y—Anthony Goldstein."

The boy's eyes flicked toward the corner. "Why's your trunk say _Yehuda_, then?"

He ducked his head, embarrassed. "Anthony's my legal name. I'm mostly called Yehuda."

"Weird," said the boy. "But shouldn't Yehuda be Judah, not Anthony?"

"It's from the Ge—the Talmud. Rabbi Yehuda was best friends with Antoninus. My parents thought it was funny…" he trailed off lamely. There was no way this _goy_ would understand what he was talking about. "What's your name?"

"I'm Michael Corner, pleased to meet you. Should I call you Anthony or Ye…huda?"

"Yehuda," said his mouth, a second before his brain said _Are you crazy, he'll know you're Jewish, what if he can't pronounce Yehuda?_ His brain neglected to note that if Michael Corner wanted to know his religion, one glance at his yarmulke was all it took.

But Michael didn't seem to care. "It's a long trip, all the way to north Scotland," he said. "I don't mean to be unfriendly, but I've got a book I want to finish, if you don't mind…"

Yehuda didn't. He could understand that. So he sat quietly, watching fields and bushes speed past, and Michael propped a book open on the table, and the compartment was lost in pleasant silence. Only the sound of turning pages signified that time was passing at all. He was tired, it was warm, and he laid his head on the table and dozed. The sun was high in the sky when there was a clattering in the corridor outside, and a middle-aged woman opened their door. "Anything off the cart, dears?"

There was nothing he recognized, certainly no Bissli or brownie bars. He turned something called a Cauldron Cake over and over, but didn't see any O-U or Star-K or Kedassia anywhere, and the Chocolate Frog package had no certification either. Nor did the packets of riotously-colored jellybeans. He raised hopeful eyes to the woman pushing the cart. "Do you have any fruit?"

"Sure, love." She chuckled. "You're the first one to ask, and I've been stocking it for years. Would you like some cherries? Apples, grapes, pineapple…I've got fresh-squeezed orange juice as well, and there may be some berries in here somewhere…"

He bought some of everything, but passed over the pineapples, which had been cut into chunks with a probably _treif_ knife, and took a water bottle, too. Somehow he managed to make correct change out of the gold and silver coins, and spilled an armful of cherries, apples, grapes, and strawberries on the compartment table.

Michael's eyes widened. "Are you a vegetarian? Or do you just really like fruit?"

"I—"

"Oh, right." Michael slapped his forehead. "You're Jewish. Kosher, right? Are you going to bless the food? Can I watch?"

He laughed. "_Baruch Atah Hashem Elokeinu, melech ha'olam, borei p'ri ha'etz_." There was a split-second startled pause which no _Amen _filled before he bit into a grape. He watched Michael and wished he had brought something to read. Something English. He was too embarrassed to take out a Tanach or a siddur, or—horrors—a Gemara. So he ate grapes, washed his hands by leaning out the window (Michael, amazingly, was too absorbed in his book to even notice) and finished half a tuna sandwich before starting on the cherries.

The compartment door rolled open again, and a girl around their age leaned in. "You haven't any of you seen a toad, have you?"

"A toad?" Yehuda echoed blankly.

Her eyes lingered a moment on his yarmulke. "A first-year boy down at the end of the train's lost his. Have _you_ seen one?" She addressed Michael.

He moved only to turn the page. "No, I haven't, sorry."

The girl left, and their compartment fell back into silence. Yehuda stared out the window and wondered what his siblings were doing, how the boys in his class were doing on their first day at Yesodey. He pulled the Hogwarts robes over his white button-down, trying to get used to the feel-it was almost, but not quite, like a davening jacket, but it was so _goyish_, so utterly wrong. Soon the setting sun flashed through the window, nearly blinding him. His gaze flew to his watch and he gave an involuntary gasp. "Oh!"

"What's the matter?"

"I have to—" _daven mincha before shkiyah— _"say afternoon prayers before the sun goes down." He winced inwardly. It sounded so stuffy.

"All right, so pray." Michael returned to his book, unconcerned. Yehuda stood up uncertainly, looking around. Then he brightened. He rummaged in his trunk until he found a notebook. Leaning against the wall, he penned his first question.

_Dear Rabbi Zeller,_

_1\. Which way do you face when davening Shemone Esrei on a train?_

In the meantime, he supposed any direction would do. He could be facing Jerusalem one minute, and then for all he knew the train would go around a bend and he wouldn't be anymore. Michael was now watching him with interest. His heart skipped a beat as he took three steps back and began.

_Baruch Atah..._he bowed, acutely conscious of Michael's eyes burning a hole in his back. He forced himself to focus. _Gomel chassadim tovim v'konei hakol, v'zocher chasdei avos, u'meivi goel livnei bneihem l'maan shemo b'ahava. Melech, ozer, u'moshia, u'magen_. The compartment door rolled opened and he gulped but bent his knees anyway. _Blessed are You, God, shield of Avraham._

"Change into your uniforms, boys, we'll be there in—what's he _doing_?"

"Praying," Michael said matter-of-factly. "I'll tell him when he's finished."

"Uh, right." The door shut. Seconds later, the voice echoed throughout the train. "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."

He forced himself not to blink, to keep going as though there were no people lining the corridor chattering with excitement, _Atah chonen l'adam da'as, umelamed l'enosh bina _and he'd be finished within the five minutes, it wasn't worth getting distracted, _refaeinu v'neirafe, hoshieinu v'nivasheia_ and out of the corner of his eye he saw Michael fidgeting and stuffing candy into the pockets of his robes and he whispered faster, the words running together _tekah-bshofar-gadol-lecheiruseinu-vsa-nes-lekabetz-galuyoseinu_ and the train began to slow and his heart hammered in his chest, finish, just finish. He reached Modim and bowed, almost toppling as the train braked and doors began to slam, voices rose, muffled by the train's walls. Cold air washed in through the open doors. His mouth moved frantically, _hatovkilochalurachamechavehamerachemkilosamuchasadecha _and finally he skittered three steps back and jerked a sort-of-bow to the left, right, just as a voice outside called, "First years!"

He barely stopped to look, to breathe, but threw open the door and sprinted out onto a platform, where a bobbing lantern was leading a group down the path. "Any more firs' years? Mind yer step now—firs' years, follow me—"

He caught up to them, breathing hard, and slipped his _siddur _into his robe's pocket beside a forgotten sandwich. They were following a giant of a man down a stony, slippery path in the deepening twilight, trees so thick it could have been a forest. He stepped carefully, avoiding twigs and rocks, but then the girl next to him slipped and grabbed his arm and he jerked away immediately and lost his balance.

"Easy, there," someone snickered. His face burned.

"Yeh'll get yer first sight of Hogwarts in a sec'!" the giant called from up front, looking over his shoulder. "Just 'round this bend here!"

He fixed his eyes on the invisible horizon. "He can't even speak English," someone muttered next to him, but Yehuda's eyes were wide and his mouth slipped out a quiet, unconscious "Oh!" A castle loomed over them, shining towers and windows reflected in a black glassy lake.

"Wow!" Someone bumped his shoulder as they descended the riverbank. To his relief, he saw it was Michael. "How do we—"

"No more'n four to a boat," the giant announced, answering his question. A fleet of tiny canoes lined the shore.

"This is creepy," Michael said. His teeth chattered as he clambered into the boat behind Yehuda. A girl with blond pigtails sat on the bench opposite them, avoiding eye contact and biting her nails. The boats began to move on their own across the water and they watched the castle draw closer until they were so close they couldn't see it. Ivy tickled Yehuda's face as the boats were carried under a mountain, through some kind of tunnel, until they disembarked on the opposite shore and followed the giant up a flight of stone steps.

They gathered in front of a huge oak door, which opened to reveal McGonagall. She looked completely different, in a pointed witch's hat and long bright green robes. She had been formidable in his sitting room, and authoritative in the rabbi's study, but here she seemed to own the castle, here she was a queen.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," the giant announced.

_Professor_. They had been calling her "Ms." Yehuda flushed. The straggling group of eleven-year-olds followed the professor across a huge marble entrance hall, torches lighting the walls. A grand staircase faced them, and he could hear faint chatter somewhere close by, but the professor led them right past it and opened the door to an empty room. She flicked her wand, and torches flared to life along its walls.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," she said, as they filed in solemnly. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory and spend free time in your house common room. The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin." Yehuda wondered why anyone would name a house Hufflepuff or Slytherin. "Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule-breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the House Cup, a great honour. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours. The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school."

_In front of the school_? The bottom dropped out of his stomach and he nervously tucked his _peyos_ behind his ears.

"I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting. I will return when we are ready for you. Please wait quietly." She left, shutting the door behind her.

"How do we get sorted?" Yehuda asked Michael in a low voice. He'd done magic before, erased dirt in the refrigerator and made flowers bloom, but he'd never done it because he _had_ to, only because he was angry or scared or happy.

"There's a magic hat," Michael explained. "You just put on the hat and it says what house you go to. My mum told me about it. It's not scary at all, but it's in front of the whole school."

"Some sort of test, I think?" a redheaded boy was telling his friend. "Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking." Michael sniggered, but the other children were stunned into silence.

"It's not true, my mum—" Michael stopped, and gasped. The pigtailed girl screamed, and so did ten or fifteen others. Yehuda gaped, open-mouthed, as twenty ghosts—they had to be ghosts, they were people, in midair, glowing white and half-transparent—floated _through the walls_, conversing among themselves. "Forgive and forget, I say," one was saying, "we ought to give him a second chance..."

"My dear Friar, haven't we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he's not really even a ghost... I say, what are you all doing here?" The ghost looked at them curiously.

The question fell flat. Yehuda stared up at them, as did all the others.

"New students!" said the first ghost approvingly. He was bald, and wore a robe with a rope wrapped around the waist. "About to be sorted, I suppose?" Yehuda nodded automatically, as though he were not _standing in a magic castle_, in the middle of a _lake_, waiting to be _sorted_,talking to an actual _ghost_. Things couldn't get much weirder. "Hope to see you in Hufflepuff, my old house, you know—"

The door opened, and Professor McGonagall entered. Yehuda wondered if she too could float in through the walls, probably not, she wasn't dead—what was he _thinking_?"Move along now," the professor said briskly. "The Sorting Ceremony's about to start. Form a line, and follow me."

He kept his face pointed toward the floor as they walked through a doorway and into a brightly lit room, clenching his teeth to stop their chattering. There was laughter and a babble of noise and he knew everyone was staring at them, and he watched his feet as they were led between tables to the front of the room. Finally he lifted his eyes, saw—_candles floating in midair_, a long table set with glittering plates and goblets and lined with adults in pointed hats. He stood on tiptoe to see over the boy in front of him. There at the front of the room sat a plain three-legged stool, with the oldest, dirtiest hat he had ever seen perched on top of it. He wondered if he might get lice, trying it on. Michael said it _talked_, but how?

As though reading his mind, the hat began to sing.

"Oh you may not think me pretty, but don't judge on what you see,

I'll eat myself if you can find a smarter hat than me.

You can keep your bowlers black, your top hats sleek and tall,

For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat and I can cap them all.

There's nothing hidden in your head the Sorting Hat can't see,

So try me on and I will tell you where you ought to be.

You might belong in Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart,

Their daring, nerve, and chivalry set Gryffindors apart;

You might belong in Hufflepuff, where they are just and loyal,

Those patient Hufflepuffs are true and unafraid of toil;

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw, if you've a ready mind,

Where those of wit and learning will always find their kind;

Or perhaps in Slytherin you'll make your real friends,

Those cunning folks use any means to achieve their ends.

So put me on! Don't be afraid! And don't get in a flap!

You're in safe hands (though I have none) for I'm a Thinking Cap!"

Applause resounded throughout the hall. Yehuda bit his lip. So: a house for brave people, loyal people, smart people, and cunning people. He wondered what the difference was between smart and cunning, and _how on earth could the hat sing_,but was cut short as Professor McGonagall stepped forward, now holding a long roll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted. Abbott, Hannah!"

The blond-pigtailed girl who had shared their boat walked up to the front and gingerly put on the hat, looking as though it might bite her. There was a moment of silence before the hat shouted "HUFFLEPUFF!"

"I'll be one of the first, I reckon," Michael whispered in his ear. "It goes in alphabetical order."

Yehuda's stomach flip-flopped. How many names would there be before his?

"Brocklehurst, Mandy!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

He watched the tables carefully: Mandy Brocklehurst was welcomed to the second table from the left, but Lavender Brown became a Gryffindor, and sat at the furthest left. A girl called Millicent was made a Slytherin and headed to the table on the right. He tried to ingrain it in his memory so he'd know where to go at his turn—

"Corner, Michael!"

"See you round," Michael whispered, and Yehuda watched him get sorted into Ravenclaw and give him a tiny, fingers-fluttering wave as he crossed the hall. The flip-flopping in Yehuda's stomach intensified. Vincent Crabbe became a Slytherin and Kevin Entwhistle a Ravenclaw (oh no, they were up to E already) and Justin Finch-Fletchley a Hufflepuff. He wondered how many F's there would be and if there were any G's before him. "Finnegan, Seamus!" _Any minute now_.

"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat screamed.

"Goldstein, Anthony!"

_So soon? _He stepped up, feeling hundreds of eyes watching him. He squeezed his eyes shut as he sat down and gingerly pulled the hat on.

"Well, well, well," said a voice. "I haven't seen a kippah in a while."

His eyes popped open in shock. Upon seeing the hundreds of students facing him expectantly, he quickly closed them again.

"Well, where to put you?" mused the hat in his ear as though it were perfectly normal. "A good healthy dose of intellect, and my, aren't we analytical, if only for the fun of it. Not a lot of ambition, prefer a quiet life, do you, my boy?"

_Of course_, he thought, _who wouldn't?_

"You'd be surprised."

_You can hear me!_

"Obviously, or I wouldn't be able to sort you. Well, that rules out Slytherin, I suppose, and you've got a fair bit of courage, all right, but it's of the internal sort, so we'll go with the first instinct which is usually the best one…RAVENCLAW!" The hat screamed the last word for all the hall to hear. He sagged with relief and stood up.

"And just so you know," the little voice said, and he froze with his hand on the brim, "the food is kosher."

He blinked—_what?_—but the faint chuckle had already died as McGonagall called, "Goyle, Gregory!" and he replaced the hat and set off across the hall to the Ravenclaw table.

"Welcome to Ravenclaw, Goldstein!" Hands shook his and someone patted him on the back, and an older boy sat him down on a bench toward the end of the table. Michael beamed at him as _Greengrass, Daphne_ became a Slytherin, and he wondered idly if that was a Jewish name.

The Sorting was interesting now that he could watch calmly instead of waiting and worrying. A boy with the odd surname of Longbottom tripped on the way up and sat on the stool for nearly three minutes before the hat called, "GRYFFINDOR!" Then he walked away wearing it. A very small, thin girl with a long braid and a foreign-sounding name was made a Ravenclaw and slid into the seat across from Yehuda, her eyes fixed on the hat and the next student sorted. When the hat shouted "GRYFFINDOR!" she sighed and her shoulders slumped. A boy called Harry Potter was sorted into Gryffindor, and the table exploded into hysterical cheers as though the boy were some kind of celebrity.

"Blimey, they got _Harry Potter_," the older boy said, with a touch of envy in his voice.

Perhaps he _was_ some kind of celebrity. The line of first years moved quickly after that, was nearly gone, and finally _Zabini, Blaise_ became a Slytherin and Professor McGonagall rolled the parchment and took her seat at the head table. The man at its center, who had a long flowing white beard, got to his feet. Swap the robes and pointed hat for a black jacket and fedora, Yehuda thought, and he could have been on a _gadol_ card.

"That's the headmaster," the older boy explained in an undertone. "Albus Dumbledore. Brilliant man. Greatest wizard in the world, and maybe of all time—they say he's the only one You-Know-Who was ever afraid of."

"Welcome!" Albus Dumbedore boomed, stretching out his arms as though he'd like nothing more than to give them all a hug. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words."

Yehuda relaxed; this was something he was familiar with.

"And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you."

_What?_

Before his eyes, the empty dishes suddenly filled with food. Roast chicken, boiled potatoes, meat he didn't recognize wet with sauce and gravy, sausages, jugs of juice and bowls of peas and carrots. His mouth watered. The fruit on the train seemed like years ago, and all he had was a sandwich. He didn't see a sink to wash, but he'd washed and made a _bracha_ on the train, and he was so hungry he decided it was okay to continue eating the sandwich without washing again.

"Can I pass you anything, Goldstein?" the older boy asked, holding a platter of fries.

"Just juice, please," he decided. "I'm—not hungry." His stomach growled like the traitor it was. Resolutely, he took another bite of his sandwich.

Years and years ago, when Shua Danziger had still called himself Josh and his mother Mum, he had stood on his tricycle to peer over the hedge between their front yards, and offered Yehuda a candy bar. Yehuda had been little then, noted the crocheted yarmulke on his neighbor's head, and accepted it. Two seconds later, Esti had snatched it out of his hand and returned it to Shua, and that was how he learned you _always always always_ check if something is kosher enough for a boy like you.

He definitely wasn't going to take the word of a talking hat for it.

The night wore on and the noise of happy, hungry people eating rose and fell. Yehuda finished his sandwich and refilled his cup with juice, embarrassed to be the only one not eating, though the girl opposite him simply pushed peas and carrots around her plate. Thankfully, no one tried to talk to him, except to pass platters of _treif_ food under his nose and he was so tired and disoriented he wouldn't have responded anyway. The food vanished and was replaced with plates of apple pies and doughnuts, ice cream and jello, and thank God a small bowl of strawberries appeared right in front of him. The headmaster warned everyone not go here or there and there was something about a painful death that Professor McGonagall had _definitely_ not mentioned back in May, and they sang a long and nonsensical song about the school, and then at last were dismissed to bed. The boy who'd shaken his hand stood up and called for first years. Yehuda swung his legs off the bench and followed Michael into the noisy throng.

"Hilliard!" It was Professor McGonagall, the one familiar face in a dizzying crowd. She hurried up to the older boy, a small dark girl trailing wide-eyed behind her. "I need a word with three of your first years. Would you find me Boot, Goldstein, and Patil, and wait up in Ravenclaw Tower until they get back, please."

"Why does she want you?" Michael whispered. "You haven't even been here a day. Blimey—are they _twins_?"

"Looks like it," he muttered. It was the girl who had grabbed his arm on the path, and the other had sat across from him all night. They looked exactly alike. No wonder she had been so upset.

Michael patted his shoulder rather like an affectionate older brother, though the effect was somewhat spoiled since he was two inches shorter than Yehuda. "It'll be all right. Go on."

The double doors boomed shut behind the last students, and the four stood in the middle of the Great Hall around McGonagall. The twins stood so close together they looked like they wanted to share each other's clothing. Yehuda fidgeted away from Terry Boot, acutely conscious of the weight of his _yarmulke_.

"Right," McGonagall said briskly. "You're all here because your parents requested that we make accommodations for you during your time at Hogwarts. Let's start with you, Mr. Boot. I'm told you attend Mass on a regular basis at home. Hogwarts does not have a chapel, but there is one in Hogsmeade Village. Generally, only third-years and up are permitted to visit Hogsmeade, but in light of your circumstances we are going to make an exception. This is a privilege; you are to use it to attend services _only_, do you understand?"

Boot nodded. "Of course."

"Regarding literature and the teaching of evolution," McGonagall said, looking amused, "I'm afraid your parents did not understand the exact nature of the curriculum here, so that isn't relevant. Some of the students here do occasionally organize informal services; I don't know the nature of it, but you can ask the Hufflepuff prefect for details. Miss Patil and Miss Patil?"

"Yes," they blurted at exactly the same moment.

"As per your parents' request, in the event that beef is served, a house-elf will notify you and your food will be delivered separately. You may set aside a corner for worship in your dormitories—if you prefer, we can find you a spare classroom—and you may worship together past curfew if necessary. If you have a holiday or—some other religious restriction, do let someone know. Your prefect, Head of House, or myself—they'll all do. I can allow you to miss classes, within reason, but only if I know about it in advance. The same goes for you, Mr. Goldstein."

He nodded silently. It was more than he had expected. But there was Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur and eight days of Sukkos, and that was just September!

"Mr. Goldstein, your food will be prepared separately in the Hogwarts kitchen and delivered to your plate. If this is not sufficient, you may use the kitchen facilities on your own. Naturally, you will be excused from all Saturday and late Friday events, and while there is no synagogue located in Hogsmeade Village, we may be able to arrange a trip off-grounds for particularly important services. I am afraid," she turned to the Patils, "I have not the faintest idea where the nearest Hindu temple might be located."

He tried to slow his pounding heart, but settled for breathing calmly, in and out. It would be all right. Now he had a second question for the rabbi:

_2\. Can I eat kosher food that was cooked by goyim without supervision?_

If the answer was "no," he would be in a very tight spot indeed. He had no idea how to cook anything at all.

"Well, unless you have any questions, that will be all. Miss Patil, I will escort you to the Gryffindor dormitory. Mr. Boot, Mr. Goldstein, Miss Patil, please follow the cat to your tower." A silvery cloud blossomed from the end of her wand, solidifying into the shape of a cat, which turned to make sure they were following before trotting out of the hall. He wondered if this was what Rabbi Zeller had meant by an illusion, because as illusions went, this cat wasn't a very good one.

They were walking in silence, started up a staircase and along a corridor, and once the cat headed through a tapestry that turned out to be a hidden doorway. He felt compelled to speak, feeling a kind of kinship with the boy and girl on either side of him "It's nice of them to do this for us, isn't it?"

"Well, I wouldn't have come, otherwise," the Boot boy said. "Terry Boot, by the way, and you are—?"

The barest breath of hesitation. "Yehuda Goldstein."

"You're Jewish, then."

"Yes," he said, though it wasn't a question. He waited. The cat paused in front of a door, waiting for them to catch up.

Terry leaned around him to look at the girl. "What's your name?"

She opened the door, revealing a stairwell. "I'm Padma Patil. My sister Parvati's in Gryffindor."

"Where are you from?"

"Birmingham."

"No," Terry said, "I mean, where are you _from_?"

"_Birmingham_," Padma repeated, looking at him with the grave snobbishness of a preteen girl. Then she laughed, and rolled her eyes. "My grandparents are from India. You could have just asked."

"And you're—"

"Hindu."

The cat started up a round staircase that spiraled around and around, up and up stone steps and glowing torches, until Yehuda was dizzy and short of breath.

"So—you're an—idol—worshipper?" Terry panted.

Padma flinched as though she had been struck. She said nothing. Conversation died an instant painful death. Yehuda walked faster, and they continued in awkward silence. He heard ragged breathing behind him but could not tell whose it was, and none of them spoke again until the staircase ended at a wooden door with no keyhole or knob. The cat nodded curtly at them and vanished. They were home.

Terry stood on tiptoe to knock. Yehuda stepped back, half-expecting to door to swing open on its own, but it did not. Instead, a pleasant female voice echoed through the landing. "Do we see with our eyes, or through them?"

They looked at each other.

"It's a riddle," Padma said sleepily. She covered her mouth, stifling a yawn. "We have to answer it to get in. I think."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Yehuda asked. "You see with your eyes. If you didn't have eyes, you couldn't see."

"But if you were seeing _through_ your eyes, you still wouldn't be able to see if they were missing," Terry pointed out.

"So it's asking if you are your body, or if you're just inside it?" Hogwarts was turning out to be quite interesting. He mentally composed a third question:

_3\. Do you see with your eyes, or through them?_

"I'm too tired to be philosophical," Padma mumbled. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. "It's like asking if you bang in a nail with your arm or with a hammer and anyway you see with your brain. Or through your brain. Whatever."

"An apt analogy," said the voice, with amusement, but the door swung open.

They faced a huge circular room, the walls lined with bookshelves and arched windows, a few cushioned benches placed here and there. Blue and bronze banners hung from a domed ceiling far above their heads. Yehuda stepped inside. Further down, groups of tables and chairs were strategically placed as though waiting for a _chavrusa_. He could imagine the room quietly humming like a lively library.

"Oh, good, you're back." The older boy strode toward them. "I'm your prefect, Robert Hilliard—welcome to Ravenclaw Tower. You can get the grand tour later." He steered them past an imposing white statue, Padma through one door and he and Terry through another, up another flight of stairs. Through the haze of sleepiness, Yehuda wondered how high they could possibly go, until they were there. Five four-poster beds stood in a semicircle, wind whistling outside a huge arched window. Two beds were still made, blue silk sheets stretched neatly across the mattress. He saw Michael sprawled across one bed, chest rising and falling, another boy tucked neatly under the covers. His trunk stood beside his bed, and he blearily fumbled for his pajamas.

He had pulled the covers over him, half-asleep, when he remembered that he'd forgotten to _bentch_. He mumbled _Shema_ instead.

* * *

**Note: **Happy Chanukah, Rosh Chodesh, and anything else you happen to be celebrating.


	6. Chapter 6

**JKR owns HP**

**Note:** By popular request, Hebrew, Aramaic, and/or Yiddish translations will be appended to each chapter. You're welcome.

**To the reviewer** who suggested (none too politely) that devout students are unrealistically overprivileged at Hogwarts, consider the case of Remus Lupin. An administration that built a shack in a nearby village, connected it to the schoolgrounds via tunnel, and planted a guard tree over the entrance, all to accommodate a potentially dangerous student, would almost certainly consent to allowing an eleven-year-old to visit a local chapel. Hogwarts purposes to offer a magical education to _every_ wizarding child. The fact that "nearly 10%" of the first years are devout reflects nothing more than the demographic makeup of the UK, Muggle-born or pureblood status aside. As J.K. Rowling spent seven books emphasizing, blood status is irrelevant to character, magical ability, or, indeed, religion.

**Disclaimers: **Opinions expressed are those of the characters, and not the author. Never drop a lit match on the floor. For the kosher status of broccoli, CYLOR.

* * *

…_Ask your father, and he will teach you; your elders, and they will tell you (Deuteronomy 32:7)_

* * *

Rabbi Zeller had told him to prepare ten questions each week. Something told him that wasn't going to be a problem. He had ten questions by dinner on the second day.

Each morning he woke up early, made his bed, and pulled the curtains shut around him to _daven_. He went down to the common room for Shemone Esrei, his _Complete ArtScroll Siddur_ clutched in sweaty hands, only to find older Ravenclaws reading at the tables and he wasn't going to stand at the window swaying back and forth in front of _them_. He scurried back to the dormitories with another question.

_4\. Can I daven Shemone Esrei sitting on my bed?_

Each morning he sat at the breakfast table and self-consciously moved eggs and kippers around his plate with a fork, stopping only to drink the fresh-squeezed orange juice that was the only thing he could be sure was kosher. There were bowls of grapes, too, which enabled him to leave breakfast with a full stomach.

Robert Hilliard handed out class schedules at breakfast. He looked it over, already wistful for the Gemara and Kitzur Shulchan Aruch tucked into the nightstand in his dormitory. His schedule had Charms and a double class of Potions and something called Herbology, along with a class labeled "DADA" which he hoped was an abbreviation. Also, there seemed to be a class at midnight on Tuesdays. How odd.

In the corridor, Michael suddenly stopped and gripped his arm. "Did you see him?" he whispered. "Did you see his scar?"

"What are you talking about?" Yehuda turned. All he saw was the backs of two first-years going into a classroom.

"That was _Harry Potter!_"

"Who?"

"Harry _Potter_, you know—oh, I forgot, you don't. Never mind, I'll tell you later."

Charms was taught by a very tiny, very squeaky, very old man. He was Professor Flitwick and Robert Hilliard had said he was their head of house. Michael glanced sideways at him as Yehuda took out a notebook and pen. His eyes narrowed; he looked as though he were deciding whether or not to say something. But then the professor called, "Anthony Goldstein!" and Yehuda blurted "Here," a second too late, and Michael looked away and said nothing.

Magic was complicated, there were things you had to say and things to have in mind—_almost like brachos!_—and you had to move your wand a certain way. They drew tables and practiced the different kinds of wand movements, careful not to say anything as they did in case they accidentally made something happen. Yehuda wondered where, under all the prohibitions of _tamim tihyeh _and telling the future and manipulating nature, would something like _Wingardium Leviosa_ fall.

_5\. Am I allowed to levitate things?_

Professor McGonagall taught a subject called Transfiguration. She started off her lesson by turning her desk into a pig, though they had to learn a lot before they ever reached that level. She looked annoyed at the sight of Yehuda taking notes. He didn't understand why. _Everyone_ in the room was taking notes. What was he doing wrong?

Then together with the Slytherin house, they trooped outside to a greenhouse with their _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_, where a grandmotherly woman introduced herself as Professor Sprout. Notes were not necessary, she assured them, they would discuss their findings at the end of class and they could write it down then. Yehuda was relieved, because a lot of the Slytherins and even Michael had been looking at him funny as he wrote, and maybe they didn't take notes here at all. It turned out there were lots of plants on the Hogwarts grounds that he had never heard of, that probably shouldn't even have existed, like a mint plant whose leaves could stop you from bleeding and a willow tree that attacked you if you got too close.

All in all, he decided as they left the greenhouse, it wasn't so bad. Besides for being strange, the classes weren't terribly difficult; there were terms to memorize, but he was always good at memorizing. And if there was fruit, the meals were all right. But surely Rabbi Zeller would answer and let him know that he could eat the food. Right?

As it was, he was so hungry that the first thing he saw upon walking into the Great Hall were the bowls of apples on every table. _Lunch_.

Michael loaded up a plate with baked potatoes and cheese and broccoli. Yehuda wondered if he could eat the broccoli, but he could smell from a mile away that it was cooked, probably in a treif pot, so he grabbed an apple and sat down next to Michael's plate. Someone sat down, clearing his throat.

"Hi, Michael," he said, but the boy sliding in next to him was not Michael.

"Yehuda Goldstein, right? I'm Terry Boot." The boy stuck out his hand.

"I know," Yehuda said stiffly. He edged away as imperceptibly as he could without being insulting. Professor McGonagall said he went to Mass, and Mass was a Christian church-_davening_-_lehavdil_ sort of thing, wasn't it? That meant Terry was a Christian.

Terry dropped his hand awkwardly. "How are you settling in? I know you're always with that Michael Corner—he wasn't at that accommodations meeting after the welcome feast. Is he also religious? Like you and me?"

The thought had never occurred to him. Where _was _Michael, anyway? "I don't know. I didn't ask him."

"You should, shouldn't you? Us people of faith ought to stick together. We've got a lot in common; I mean, we both believe in the Old Testament, anyway—Jews do, don't you?"

"Mmm-hmm," Yehuda said, trying to look knowledgeable. He had never heard of any testament, old or new, but felt that now would be a bad time to confess it. He made a mental note to ask the rabbi: _6\. What is the old testament? _Why did this fellow think they were best mates, and where in the world had Michael disappeared to?

"—ought to be friends, don't you think?"

"Yes, of course," he said automatically, spotting Michael at last, weaving his way back between tables. "You're in Michael's seat, if you don't mind."

"We've got Potions next," Michael said. He ignored Terry, dropping onto the bench and consulting his schedule. He tugged the sleeve of the curly-haired girl beside him. "Excuse me. Where would I find the Potions classroom?"

"Potions?" A boy further down overheard him. "The firsties have got Potions next, Marcus! Maybe we ought to warn them what they're in for."

"Professor _Snaaaaape_!" Marcus growled. "Beware the giver of detentions, taker of points, enemy of Gryffindor, terror of the dungeon!"

"The _dungeon_?" Yehuda gaped.

"Marcus!" The curly-haired girl giggled. "It's just a cellar. I don't know why it's called the dungeons."

Yehuda took another bite of his apple. He looked at Michael's baked potato, and his stomach grumbled.

* * *

The dungeons may have been only a cellar, but they were certainly as creepy as any dungeon, low-ceilinged and cold, the only light from the torches lining the walls. Yehuda took out his textbook, notebook, and pen, and laid them flat on the desk beside his cauldron. Once again, Michael frowned, looking at Yehuda as though he had done something terribly inappropriate. This time, however, Terry and Kevin and even some of the Hufflepuffs were staring at him.

"What?"

"Silence."

Professor Snape had arrived. There was a tiny, fearful flurry of activity while they all scurried to their desks.

"You are here to master the delicate art of potionmaking." The professor's voice was a low, dangerous purr, barely above a whisper. "Some of you may doubt that there is magic involved here at all. Potionmaking is precise and subtle, with none of the incantations and explosions endemic to your other subjects. I expect none of you to understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the subtle power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses. I can teach you to stir glory in a cauldron and to brew death in a vial, if you aren't as dunderheaded as the usual crop—Abbott, Hannah."

"Here," spluttered a Hufflepuff girl, almost falling out of her chair.

Yehuda watched Professor Snape, his stomach squirming. Snape was not an especially tall or frightening-looking man, but he dressed entirely in black, and his voice was hushed, deadly as night in the eerie windowless dungeon. His hair was long, his eyes black, and he looked darkly disinterested in the proceedings of his own class. "Boot, Terry—Corner, Michael—Cornfoot, Stephen—" he barely paused for the quavering _Here_'s— "Entwhistle, Kevin—Finch-Fletchley, Justin—"

"Here—"

"Goldstein." The professor's eyes flicked up from the list, his voice silky. "_Yehuda_."

He jerked in his seat. "H-here."

Snape scrutinized him with half-shrouded eyes, or, to be more precise, scrutinized the upper half of his hairline, where rested a black embroidered velvet yarmulke. Yehuda fought the urge to adjust it under the heat of the professor's glare. He looked away, shoulders trembling, but Snape continued smoothly. "Hopkins, Wayne—Jones, Megan—Li, Su—" Breath returned to Yehuda's lungs as Snape rattled down the class list. "—Turpin, Lisa. We will begin with something simple enough for any of you. Open your books to page twelve."

They learned to make a potion to cure boils. The professor distributed a pile of snake fangs and a real, actual mortar and pestle to each desk. He and Michael took turns crushing them into powder while Professor Snape barked at Smith to let Macmillan grind his own fangs. Most of the class was devoted to Snape lecturing on poison antidotes and something called the Draught of Living Death while they waited for the potion to brew. Yehuda took notes faster and more frantically than he had ever had in Torah Temima, but out of the corner of his eye he saw that everyone else looked just as agitated. Afterward, they added shriveled little horned slugs to the cauldrons, causing several girls to shriek and firmly cementing Yehuda's belief that he would never, _ever_ be able to eat anything in Hogwarts. He scribbled a note in the margin of his notebook, reminding him to ask the rabbi.

_7\. Can I eat a bezoar?_

Snape's cloak brushed the edge of his desk. He looked up, his heart in his throat, but the professor only looked down at them with narrowed eyes and said, "Take your cauldron off the fire _before_ you add the quills, Corner. Boot, you should be stirring clockwise."

He heard a gasp behind him. A Hufflepuff boy was wide-eyed in the pink steam suddenly shimmering from the surface of his cauldron and he bolted to his feet, knocking it over. Hannah Abbott yelped as the potion splashed her robes, and Finch-Fletchley actually stood on his chair to avoid the spreading puddle. Snape's mouth thinned into a hard line as he whirled to face the offender.

"If you read the instructions, you'd know that steam was the final sign that the potion was made correctly. Yes, Hopkins, you heard me—_correctly._ A point from Hufflepuff for your spinelessness. _Evanesco_." The puddle vanished. Yehuda's hand flew to his mouth. Snape's eyes narrowed in his direction. "Dismissed," he said lazily. "Goldstein, stay."

He looked up in alarm. What had he done to cross this strange grim man, and on the first day? People cast him sympathetic looks as they filed out. Marcus had been right, Professor Snape was not someone whose bad side you wanted to be on. Snape collapsed his cauldron, placed jars of eerily colored liquids back on the shelves. Yehuda thought he saw a shrunken human head. He moved forward cautiously, but Professor Snape did not look at him. The door swung shut behind Michael.

Snape drew his wand.

Yehuda stepped back so fast he tripped over his own heels.

"Listen, Goldstein." The professor spoke very quietly. "You are a Muggle-born. Pathetically ignorant of wizarding customs. _This_ is not acceptable in our world."

Yehuda followed the line of Snape's outstretched arm, the pointed wand. His notebook and pen rose from the desk and floated toward him.

"Sir?" Now he was utterly confused. "What do I write with, then? I mean—what do wizards write with?"

"Are you completely oblivious, Goldstein?" the professor demanded. "Get a quill. Get some parchment. Buy it off your classmates if you must."

"Uh—thank you, sir?"

Snape appeared not to hear this. "Now get out of my sight."

He did.

He was almost late to the next class, not that it mattered, because the teacher was apparently a ghost, gliding straight through the wall, skipping attendance, and starting to talk about the importance of learning notable figures of wizarding history in a completely flat and toneless voice that, had he not been eleven years old and on his second day in a completely new school, would have had Yehuda lay down on his desk and falling asleep.

"Got any spare parchment?" he whispered to Michael.

Michael tore his parchment in half and silently passed him one sheet, a quill, then slid his inkwell between them. Yehuda dipped the quill and carefully shook off the excess ink, then printed _Yehuda Goldstein _in the upper left corner of the parchment. The quill moved smoothly, carving glossy ink into the creamy parchment, and he watched it in slack-jawed fascination. It was beautiful.

Michael nudged him.

Class. Right.

He would get to write like this—this more than writing, almost artistic way—every day but Shabbos, for seven years. He quirked a tiny smile at the thought. But before he returned his attention to someone called Emeric the Evil, he wrote in small letters on the parchment, trying to see how small the letters could be before they bled into each other and made an illegible mess: _8\. How do you become a sofer?_

* * *

At dinner, a hand landed on his shoulder. It was Robert Hilliard. "Can I talk to you for a moment?" Not waiting for an answer, he steered Yehuda away from the table.

Was he in trouble _again_? The notebook wasn't his fault, nobody had warned him you couldn't use a pen here. He glanced over Robert's shoulder. Meat that he now knew was pork chops popped into existence on platters across the hall, and in spite of himself he thought it smelled good.

"I couldn't help but notice that…" The prefect followed his gaze, looking uncomfortable. "That, well, you haven't been eating. Is—everything all right?"

He bit his lip, trying to find the words.

"Well, I keep kosher," he said. "And Professor McGonagall said they could take care of it but I had to write to my rabbi to ask exactly how and I don't have an answer yet and I don't even know where the kitchen is so it's not like I can check if they're doing it right or go in there and ask for fruit..." He spoke quickly, in a low voice, looking at the floor.

The prefect sounded horrified. "You haven't eaten since _Sunday_?"

"No! No, I had sandwiches…and some stuff I brought from home. And sometimes they put out fruit at meals." He sneaked a glance at Robert's face. Still horrified.

Before he knew what had hit him, Robert had marched him out of the Great Hall, Michael and Terry's wondering eyes tracking their path, into the corridor, around the grand staircase down a small flight of stone steps to a wide, brightly-lit corridor lined with paintings of food. The biggest, that of a huge silver fruit bowl, took up the entire wall at end of the hallway. Robert pulled him along until they stood right in front of it.

"These are the kitchens, Goldstein. They don't like students being down here—it's not good for the workers." Robert's fingers scrabbled across the painting, and the painted green pear transformed into a doorknob.

"The workers?" Yehuda echoed blankly, as the painting swung open. His first thought was child labor; the room was as huge and loud as a factory, a high stone ceiling and clattering metal all over. Small figures scurried from stovetop to table, frying and stirring, and for every pot on a flame were five more dangling from hooks, heaped on tables. A huge brick fireplace loomed over it all, casting the waist-high chefs in an eerie yellowish light.

"Master Hilliard!"

Yehuda screamed. Robert elbowed him in the ribs. The chefs were the ugliest creatures he had ever seen: bald, with huge winglike ears and eyes the size of tennis balls and knobbly, too-long limbs, and they appeared to be wearing Hogwarts-crested pillowcases. "What can Remmy do for Master Hilliard, sir?"

"This is Anthony Goldstein—McGonagall told you about him, didn't she?"

"Master Goldstein, the special food." The murmur circulated in the small group standing around them. Heads bobbed up and down and big green tennis balls eyeballed Yehuda.

"Right," Robert said. "So…talk to the house-elves. What do you need, Anthony?"

(What did he _need_? His own separate meat and dairy oven and pots and pans, brand new and unused, but then they would need to be _toveled_ and _chalav Yisrael_ milk and a way to turn on the fire every morning so as to make the food technically _bishul Yisrael_ and food left to cook from Friday afternoon clear through Shabbos morning and why not a properly-_shechted_ cow while he was at it.)

But there did not seem to be ovens—only that fireplace.

Only a fireplace? A broad smile crossed his face. "Do you have pans that you _only_ use for potatoes, or _only_ use for broccoli?"

The house-elves looked scandalized. "Hogwarts house-elves would never use a potato pan for something that is not potatoes!" someone shrilled. "Hogwarts house-elves would never use a broccoli pot for something that is not broccoli!"

Yehuda's heart leaped. He stood on tiptoe and whispered into Robert's ear. "Are they joking?"

"They can't lie to you," the prefect whispered back. "They belong to Hogwarts, they're not allowed. It's house-elf magic."

"Perhaps Master Goldstein would like baked potatoes and broccoli?" They loaded a plate with steaming potatoes and broccoli, straight from the fire, and handed it to him. "Anything else Master Goldstein requires, sir?"

He thought fast, to the calendar in his nightstand with two boxes X'ed out. It was Tuesday already. "Do you have two candles? And another one with two wicks?"

* * *

Back in the dormitory, his stomach full for the first time in what felt like ages, he davened _mincha_ in the safety of his curtained bed and then turned his attention to the Gemara. The sound of turning pages filled the room, from his bed and from Michael's. Behind the curtains, nobody could tell he was turning the pages right to left, searching _daf nun-hey _for ten or maybe twelve different ways for sheep to get in trouble, the verdict in each case, and the explanation, so he could fill them all in on his father's sheet. There were so many cases that he drew a chart just to track the _Tanna Kama_ and Rabbi Shimon's opinions on damaging ripe fruits, even though his father's sheets didn't say he had to.

With a smile, he pulled out his notebook and finished off the letter with a flourish.

_10\. Why does the mishna say the animal broke out at night? Earlier the mishna says that as long as it was locked up properly he's patur, which would imply even by day._

_Thank you very much._

_Sincerely, Yehuda Goldstein._

He folded the letter carefully and sealed it, then stood up, cracking his stiff back. "Michael? Where can I post this?"

"Owlery," Michael grunted.

"What?"

"Owlery. West Tower. Give it to your owl."

"My _owl_?" Yehuda said, confused.

Michael looked up at last. "Don't you have one?"

"Why would I have an owl?"

Michael sat up. "I forgot, you don't know. We use owls to send post. It's fast, and they won't give it to anyone but who you ask. Very handy, owls—you ought to get one. You can use the school's, though. They're just not quite as reliable, because they don't know you."

"Oh." He seemed to be saying that with increasing frequency. "West Tower, you said?"

He bundled up and trekked out to a cold, drafty tower, where huge glassless windows opened to the sky and owls of a thousand brown, white and gray colorless shades pecked at their nesting boxes and hooted. The floor was covered in hay. School owls occupied rows of straw-lined cubes under a huge Hogwarts crest, and they each wore a band around their ankles. At least he supposed it was an ankle. Probably there was a book somewhere in the school that would tell him what a bird's ankle was called. He went up to one box, containing a large brown owl with black and grey markings.

"Um, can you take this to—Rabbi Zeller?" he asked nervously. The owl looked at him arrogantly. "I mean, to London. Golders Green. 33 Hallswelle Road?"

The owl hooted and gripped the letter in sharp talons before hopping out onto the ledge.

"Be careful," he said, feeling a little silly. "It's sort of important. I need to get an answer."

The week blurred by with no answer from the rabbi, and then it was Friday afternoon. A few minutes to seven, he tried to explain Shabbos to his roommates: he would light candles, and then he would spend the next twenty-five hours relaxing and doing no work at all. Kevin thought it was bloody brilliant, Michael cleared a spot on the nightstand for the candlesticks, Stephen was absorbed in a book and completely missed the announcement, and Terry said that he was fascinated by these old testament rituals even though the new testament canceled them all out for Christians, and for the thousandth time Yehuda wondered what a testament was.

His siddur instructed him to first _daven mincha_, then light the candles, then cover his eyes, then say the _bracha_, and then uncover his eyes to look at the candles. He wondered how his mother remembered all that every week. And the instructions didn't say to wave your hands in a circle before covering your eyes. Maybe boys weren't supposed to do that part?

He struck the match with trembling fingers and lit the candles. Was he allowed to blow it out? Just to be on the safe side, he dropped it and scuffed it out with his shoe before quickly covering his eyes, feeling a bit silly. He cleared his throat. "_Baruch Atah Hashem Elokeinu, melech ha'olam, asher kedeshanu b'mitzvosav v'tzivanu l'hadlik ner shel Shabbos_."

"Amen," said Terry promptly, pronouncing it _ay-men_ instead of _ah-mein_.

Michael sat cross-legged on the floor, writing Flitwick's essay on wand movements, and Yehuda could hear the waves of noisy chatter from the common room below. At home, he would be walking to _shul_ with Tatty and Sholom. He would stand next to Sholom, bouncing on his heels to the tunes of _Kabbalas Shabbos_ while Sholom looked at him disapprovingly and pointed out the page number. He opened the _siddur _and whispered _Lechu Neranena _and _Lecha Dodi_ to himself, the words swelling in his throat, but there was no way he was going to stand up and belt them out from the tips of his toes like he did at home.

Dinner had been hours ago. It was the most un-_Shabbosdig_ Friday night he could have imagined. He lay miserably on his bed, watching the candles until he fell asleep. And then the next thing he knew, he was waking up in his Shabbos shirt with a stiff neck and daylight streaming into the room. Michael was gone, and there was a persistent tap-tap-tapping at the window. He sat up groggily. The candles had long melted into wax lumps all over the candlesticks, his siddur resting forlornly beside them.

Tap-tap. Tap-tap.

Terry crossed the room in his pajamas and opened the glass. "Yehuda? I think it's for you."

The brown owl swooped through the window, wings fluttering and batting in Yehuda's face. He yelled and flung out a hand, shoving the owl to a perch on the wardrobe. It looked at him balefully and pecked at its feathers, holding out the letter. He caught his breath, now fully awake.

"I can't open post on Shabbos," he muttered, looking sideways at Terry.

Terry detached the letter and flung it at Yehuda, stroking the owl's feathers with the other hand. It hooted in thanks and flew back out the window.

Yehuda stared at the letter, lying innocently on the blue sheets, as he swung his legs off the side of the bed. He would change his clothes, he would look over the _parsha_, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. But he would have to remember that for after Havdalah—for next week's questions, for starting all over again. He began the letter in his mind.

_Dear Rabbi Zeller,_

_1\. Can I take post from an owl on Shabbos?_

* * *

**Glossary**

_Daven_. Pray.

_Shemone Esrei_, literally "eighteen." The nineteen main blessings of daily Jewish prayer. (Preferably said without interruption, standing up, and facing, if known, in the direction of Jerusalem.)

_Siddur_. Prayer book.

_Kosher_. In accordance with Jewish dietary laws.

_Gemara_. The Talmud.

_Kitzur Shulchan Aruch_. Condensed religious text of Jewish law.

_Brachos_. Blessings.

_Treif_. Non-kosher.

_Hashem_, literally "the name." God.

_Lehavdil_. To distinguish between two topics are not religiously equivalent.

_Sofer_. Scribe. (Many Jewish ritual items and texts must be handwritten by quill on parchment according to specific requirements, thus making this a viable career option.)

_Toveled_. Immersed in a natural water source.

_Chalav Yisrael_. Milking supervised by a Jew.

_Bishul Yisrael._ Food cooked by a Jew.

_Shechted_. Slaughtered in accordance with Jewish law.

_Mincha_. Afternoon prayers.

_Daf nun-hey_. Page 55, in Talmudic page numbering.

_Tanna Kama._ Refers to the first opinion in a mishna when the name of the sage has not been previously mentioned.

_Bracha_. Blessing.

_Baruch Atah, Hashem Elokeinu, melech ha'olam, asher kedeshanu b'mitzvosav v'tzivanu l'hadlik ner shel Shabbos. _Blessed are you, the Lord our God, king of the world, who has sanctified us with his instructions and commanded us to light the flame of Shabbos. (Blessing recited when lighting candles just before Shabbos.)

_Shul_. Synagogue.

_Kabbalas Shabbos_. Quasi-poetic prayers for the onset of Shabbos. (_Lechu Neranena_ and _Lecha Dodi_ are two of them.)

_Shabbosdig_. Shabbos-like.

_Parsha_. Weekly Torah portion.

* * *

**Note: **A healthy fast to all.


	7. Chapter 7

**JKR owns HP**

**To "Chani":** Thanks for your very prescient review. Some of your advice was taken into account in the making of the chapter. Nevertheless, this chapter is long on Judaism and short on plot, due to the similar nature of Tishrei.

**Disclaimer: **Do not ever make a halachic decision based on the actions of a fictional eleven-year-old.

* * *

_For on this day [God] will make atonement for you, to cleanse you of all your sins, and you will be purified before God (Leviticus 16:30)_

* * *

_Dear Yehuda…_

_4\. Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, siman 18, se'if 7. See also siman 1, se'if 3._

The first time he davened in the common room, he thought he would die. It was early Sunday morning, so the room was almost empty. A couple of older girls were poring over thick textbooks and rolls of parchment, and a boy was browsing at the bookshelves. Quietly, Yehuda shut the door to the dormitory and peeked out the window to check which way the sun rose.

His heart hammering, he turned to face _mizrach_ and took three steps back. His heart pounded and he was sure any moment someone would yell _Look, Goldstein's praying!_ but nothing happened. Instead he bent his knees, bowed, and proceeded with Shemone Esrei. It wasn't quite perfect, he had to keep dragging his attention back to the words, but it was the calmest Shemone Esrei he'd had since the morning he'd left to Hogwarts.

When he finished, he jogged back upstairs to put his siddur away. Terry was dressing and Michael was beginning to stir. No one batted an eyelash when he laid the siddur on the nightstand. Stephen grunted "Shut the door!" but that was all.

He double-checked the calendar just to be a hundred percent sure. Rosh Hashanah was tonight, tomorrow, and Tuesday. Yes, he was allowed to miss class, yes, McGonagall had said so, yes, he just had to tell his prefect, and he waited until the common room had emptied out somewhat, but in the stream of Ravenclaws heading to breakfast, he lost sight of Hilliard. He looked around, confused, and saw a tall curly-haired girl ushering Mandy and Morag toward the door.

"Excuse me," he said. "Do you know where I can find the prefect? Robert?"

"Robert's gone to breakfast," the girl said. "But I'm a prefect, too; Penelope Clearwater, and you are…?" Her eyes lit on his yarmulke. "You must be Goldstein."

"Right." He twisted his fingers behind his back. "And I, uh, have a…holiday tonight."

She nodded. "Right. McGonagall told us you'd be asking. Are you going to need to miss class?"

"Tomorrow and Tuesday." Did he sound like he was only trying to skive off? "I'll be at Astronomy, though."

After breakfast, the others went to look at all the sign-up sheets posted on the common room board. Kevin and Stephen came back talking excitedly about Gobstones and Charms Clubs. Yehuda did not go down to look. Rosh Hashanah was coming in at seven thirty-five, and there was a lot to do before then.

He wrote the wand movements essay as quickly as he could, glancing back at his _Standard Book of Spells_ to differentiate between a point and a jab and a stab. It was complicated, but not as complicated as _yiush shelo midaas_. He finished, dotted the last period, and stood up, cracking his back. "Michael? Can you give this to Professor Flitwick tomorrow? I'm not going to be there."

Next he drew up a list on his notebook, not wanting to waste the borrowed parchment. For _kiddush_, he'd need grape juice. They'd put out fruit by the meals, and there might be one or two other things he could eat, he'd ask the house-elves to save some overnight because probably you couldn't cook, but it wouldn't be a proper Rosh Hashanah without the _simanim_. Apple and honey, a fish head, carrots, beets …a _rimon _to make _Shehechiyanu_. He flipped to the corresponding page in his ArtScroll _machzor_. Fenugreek and gourd? They'd never done _that_ at home.

Satisfied, he jammed the list into his pocket and stood up to go place his order. Terry gave him a curious look as he left the dormitory.

He would have made it to the kitchen quicker, but the staircase that had been there yesterday was not there anymore, and he wandered the third floor aimlessly until the caretaker yelled at him to get away from the door, and then he ran so fast he had no idea how he had reached the ground floor. He tickled the pear until the kitchen door opened and slipped inside the kitchen. He watched the chaos for a few moments before he was noticed, and a little cluster of bat-eared tennis balls swarmed him. "Master Goldstein! What is Master Goldstein wanting?"

"Er…hello," he said awkwardly. "I'm having a holiday tonight, and I wanted to know if you could save me some food for the next two days since you're not allowed to cook."

"Does Master Goldstein wish a ram's head for the New Year?" one of them asked eagerly.

"A ram's head?" He was taken aback. "Don't you mean a fish head?"

The house-elf bowed his head. "Remmy will get what Master Goldstein asks. If Master Goldstein requires a fish head, Master Goldstein shall have one."

"All right, thank you, and it has to be from a fish with fins and scales. Is that all right?"

Heads bobbed up and down. He checked his list. "I also need grape juice and a pomegranate and an apple and honey."

* * *

After dinner, he quickly ran out to the Owlery and borrowed a school owl to place an order for parchment and quill and a few jars of ink. He counted out the little silver and bronze coins and tucked them into a pouch strung around the owl's tarsometatarsus (_Common Owls of Wizarding Great Britain_ had informed him this was the proper name for the bird's ankle) and sent it off to Diagon Alley. At least he would be prepared, after Rosh Hashanah.

Last and finally, he set up his candlesticks.

"_Again_?" Terry said.

"Lay off him, Boot," Kevin said. "It's only his business if he wants to light candles."

Yehuda studiously ignored them. He lit the candles at 7:30, five minutes earlier than the calendar said to, just in case. He made the _brachos_, covered his eyes, and sat back down on his bed just as Stephen flung open the door. "Any of you finished your essay for Flitwick?"

"Shhh!" Michael said severely. "It's his New Year!"

His face got hot. "I've finished mine," he said. "Michael, you've got it, can you give it to him?"

"I'm allowed to?"

He prayed to sink into the earth and disappear, but his prayer went unanswered. Instead, Michael watched him with fascination as he dipped the whole apple straight into the honey jar. He had no knife to cut it, although he had seen a second-year use a spell to do that. He made a proper _Shehechiyanu_ on the pomegranate. Terry and Michael showered and got into pyjamas while he ate his _seudah_: hard-boiled eggs, peas and carrots, and orange juice. They put out the torches while he ate dessert, which was some forgotten sweets he discovered at the back of his drawer.

He had a leisurely morning, waking up to the sight of the others heading to class. At home, he had held the last page of Shacharis so he could count down the hundreds of pages as they went by. It was much faster here. There was no _leining_, though he read the story of the Akeida to himself, and no _shofar_, because Rabbi Zeller had written that it was all right to skip it since he wasn't _bar mitzvah_. It didn't feel right to not have _shofar_ at all, so he made tooting noises under his breath.

The _machzor_ instructed him to say _tashlich_ at a nearby body of water. He could say it at the bathroom sink, he supposed, but why bother when there was a lake right outside? His Shabbos shoes squeaked against the stone of the empty corridors as he headed downstairs, distant waves of chatter wafting from the Great Hall doors. He ducked inside and grabbed a bread roll from the nearest table, ignoring the startled stares of a few Slytherins, then headed toward the big double doors.

"Oi—Goldstein!" He turned. Michael was coming out of the hall, his robes open and school tie crooked. "Where're you going?"

He instinctively turned the _machzor _so the plain blue English-way side faced out. "Out to the lake. I have to say something by the water."

"Can I come? You missed an interesting class today." They stepped onto the path, blinking in the fading light. "Professor Sprout took us to see the Whomping Willow. Did you know that if a branch of it gets hurt, it's treated just like an arm? Why do you have bread?"

"It's something we do for the New Year," he tried to explain. "It's like we're throwing our—" _how do you say aveiros in English_ "—sins into the water for the fish to eat."

Usually his father found the place for him, but today Yehuda navigated the table of contents on his own, Michael's chatter a pleasant background hum in his ear. He crumbled the bread in his hands and tossed chunks of it into the water. "_Mi Kel kamocha, nosei avon v'over al pesha l'sh'eiris nachalaso_…" He skipped past a few pages of small print and walked slowly along the shore, dropping bread as he went.

"You throw your sins away? The bread is your sins?" Michael jogged alongside him. "If the fish eat the bread, and someone eats the fish, do they have all your sins now? How does it work exactly?"

"I don't know," he said tightly. He fumbled for the last page and recited the final _pasuk_ seven times, counting each repetition on his fingers, and flung the last bit of roll as far into the lake as it would go. "Let's go inside. It's getting dark."

He woke the next morning with his eyes closed, listening to his roommates' breathing and breathing the cool sunlight on his face. After a few minutes, he pushed himself awake. Sleeping roommates were something to take advantage of. He dressed quickly, washed _negel vasser_, and made the fastest, quietest Kiddush humanly possible. Then he grabbed his _machzor_ and escaped to the still-empty common room.

The others left to class while he was in the middle of Shemone Esrei, facing the other way so he could imagine they werent looking. He skipped the _chazzan_'s repetition, plowed determinedly through Avinu Malkeinu, and fell to his knees for Aleinu. The morning prayers finally ended on page 593, but it took the better part of the day to get there.

After, he made _kiddush_ (grape juice was starting to get boring) and ate cold potatoes and the remainder of his pomegranate. He paged restlessly through the Mishnayos Rosh Hashanah that had been inserted into his _machzor_. He paced off the length, width, and circumference of the dormitory. He reread Rabbi Zeller's letter for the billionth time. He even reread his essay on wand movements. Would it be _so_ bad to just go to class? He wouldn't write or do magic or anything, but he could sit there and…do something.

With the smallest tinge of guilt, he got to his feet and left the tower. The building echoed with emptiness as he descended the staircases. It felt like he was sneaking around somewhere he shouldn't be. On the fourth floor, the ghost professor suddenly glided through the wall and his heart skipped so fast he lost his breath.

"Why aren't you in class?"

Yehuda's mouth opened and closed wordlessly.

"Well?" Professor Binns demanded, sweeping closer.

Yehuda turned and ran, his feet pounding the stone even as his brain yelled _Wait—you have permission! _He flung a glance over his shoulder and saw the professor drifting along the hallway behind him, and he ducked into an alcove and pressed his back to the wall, catching his breath. He peeked around the door and his heart leapt—it was a _library_. He let out in involuntary gasp and pushed the door open.

The librarian peered at him suspiciously. "Why aren't you in class, boy?"

He took a deep breath. "It—it's—itsmyholidayImJewish."

She nodded curtly, though her face still looked pinched and annoyed. He guessed this was her usual look, and he forged ahead with a hopeful smile. "Do you happen to have any Hebrew books here?"

"Hebrew?" Her eyes narrowed. "Some. The Talmud, and another shelf or two."

"Where?" he said eagerly.

She snapped her hand outward in a general way. "In the library!"

He understood his dismissal for what it was and quickly lost himself in the maze of bookshelves. Wide-eyed, he browsed past shelves full of titles like _The New Theory of Numerology_ and _Charms of Defence and Deterrence_ and _Merpeople: A Comprehensive Guide to Their Language and Customs_ before he slapped his forehead. There was a much easier way to find a Talmud. He stepped back into the middle of the aisle and scanned the bookshelves for matching sets, and less than five aisles later he was craning his neck up at thirty-seven identically bound brown leather books.

_3\. See Chagiga 12a_, Rabbi Zeller had written. _How could light have been created before the sun?_

He stood on tiptoes, squinting at the spines, and wormed out a volume by his fingertips. At the back of the aisles, he found a table and some chairs, and he unfolded Rabbi Zeller's letter and opened the Gemara beside it. Hour by hour, he worked his way down the list of sources, down a line-by-line archaic translation in a Gemara with no commentaries.

_6\. Rambam, Sanhedrin 10, ikar #9. See also Devarim 13:1_

He discovered that the library lacked a Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, but did have a Mishne Torah, a biography of Rabbi Elyah Lopian, and, bewilderingly, a Sephardic _Haggadah shel Pesach_. Twice he had to stand up to retrieve a Tanach, or the Rambam's commentary. He paged through analyses of vegetarian food and whether or not non-human cooking was _bishul akum_. Daylight grew dim and he had to squint to make out the small print, but only when the torches on the wall flickered to life did he straighten, blinking in confusion. Rosh Hashanah was over.

* * *

_8\. Practice, practice, practice. See attached._

Yehuda had laughed when he shifted aside the rabbi's letter and saw _klaf_ neatly printed with the _alef-bais_ in _ksav Ashuris. _Now, having successfully transfigured a match into a needle on the eleventh try, he put his wand down and set about trying to copy the letters. His brow furrowed in concentration, he nearly missed the conversation behind him. Michael and Terry had turned their chairs to face the chatter.

"We don't actually—_fly_?" Kevin was saying nervously. "On a broom, like witches?"

The second-years all laughed. "Where do you think that story started?" a girl said.

"And Quidditch is bloody _brilliant_," Michael enthused.

"I've been practicing on my dad's broom since I was five, I don't need flying lessons—"

_Another _subject? With a sigh, he straightened to listen in. Apparently, a sign had gone up in the common room announcing that first-years would be having flying lessons outside, with the Hufflepuff house and someone called Madam Hooch, and anyone who had ever flown on a broom was telling everyone how high and fast they had gone. He shook his head, pushing the _klaf_ aside. They were going to fly—? On _broomsticks_? This place only got stranger every day.

His impression did not change, not even when they trekked out to the grass for lessons.

"Good afternoon, class!"

"Good afternoon, Madam Hooch."

"Good afternoon, good afternoon. Welcome to your first flying lesson. Well, what are you waiting for? Everyone step up to the left side of their broomstick. Come on now, hurry up. Stick your right hand over the broom and say _up_!"

"Up," he said, feeling rather silly. Nothing happened. Across from him, the blond Hufflepuff boy looked gleefully at the broom now in his hand, the only one whose broom had jumped that far. "_Up!_" The broom rolled over halfheartedly.

"Say it like you mean it!" the teacher prodded them. "Not everyone's a natural flyer. Go on, now—"

"Up!" Michael yelled. The broom jerked up, just enough for him to grab it.

"_Up_," Yehuda muttered feverishly. "Up, up, up." Padma's broom bounced into her hand, leaving him the only one empty-handed. If not everyone was a natural, what did that make him? His face burned as Madam Hooch stopped her pacing directly in front of him. "Oh, for heaven's sake, boy, _up!_"

The broom slapped his hand so hard his palm stung.

"Once you've got hold of your broom, I want you to mount it. And grip it tight, you don't want to be sliding off the end. When I blow my whistle, I want each of you to kick off from the ground, hard. Keep your broom steady, hover for a moment, and then lean forward slightly and touch back down. On my whistle—"

At the last moment, it occurred to him to wonder whether he was allowed to fly: this wasn't something he had to worry about controlling for _pikuach nefesh_'s sake, maybe he shouldn't—

And then Terry yelped and Michael gasped and his feet lifted off the ground, and he forgot everything.

* * *

He had drawn enough attention on Rosh Hashanah, and by now everyone knew about Shabbos, and he couldn't imagine how he could approach Penelope or Robert again and say he had yet another holiday. Perhaps he could just stay out of sight, all day. It was Yom Kippur, after all; he certainly wasn't going to come in for meals.

Michael and Kevin were laughing about something someone had said in class, and he passed them in sober silence, feeling it almost a desecration of Yom Kippur to laugh with his _goyish_ roommates. He moved through the common room, the usual tumult ghosting vaguely past his ears.

He sat outside, watching the last bits of sun fade over the lake before he opened his machzor. _Kol nidrei_, he whispered, _v'esorei, u'shvuei, v'charamei_. The Aramaic was much more difficult when you weren't singing it slow and haunting along with the whole _shul_, and it took him four tries to sound out _u'd'ishtabana u'd'acharimna_. He moved his eyes over to the English.

Shemone Esrei was strange in the dim light of the castle windows, whispering alone on an empty hillside. He bent his back and struck his chest, again and again. _Ashamnu. Bagadnu. Gazalnu._ He sang some of the Selichos that he knew and sounded out the others. When he finally closed the _machzor _a hundred and eighty-nine pages later, it was very dark. The moon had risen over the lake and he heard splashes and distant screeches. He pushed himself to his feet and started up the hill to the castle. The door creaked as he slipped inside, but it was an unwelcoming creak that echoed off an empty hall, and his stomach sank. The castle was completely silent.

How late _was _it?

He climbed the steps quietly, his face turned to the ground and _machzor _tucked under his arm, feeling as though he were floating through the school in a bubble of Yom Kippur solemnity, in another world. He turned a corner and started up the stairs, but he did not hear the caretaker behind him until an iron hand clamped on his shoulder. "Where do you think you're going?"

He turned to stone, too frozen to scream.

Filch steered his captive to face him. "Out of bed at midnight, wandering the corridors, no doubt up to something…we'll see what the headmaster has to say about that!"

"The _headmaster_?" Yehuda quailed.

Filch was hunchbacked and sunken all over, but his grip never loosened as he marched Yehuda up the stairs. "They used to hang 'em by their wrists from the ceiling, that'd teach you, wouldn't it? Pity they let the old punishments die out, it's no wonder the students run wild—"

Through his terror, he recognized some of the portraits: they were on the seventh floor. And now two figures in pyjamas were coming toward them, a very short professor, a taller prefect beside him. Flitwick and Hilliard. He felt as though he were falling.

"Mr. Goldstein!" Flitwick looked angry. "Where have you been?"

"I—praying…" He trailed off.

"What were you told about holidays?" Flitwick demanded.

"I could miss class if I tell a prefect," he mumbled.

"Speak up?" Flitwick cupped a hand to his ear.

"I could miss class if I tell a prefect," he said miserably. There was a huge lump in his throat.

"Well, Mr. Goldstein, you have not told a prefect, and you have been missing from your dormitory _and_ from your Astronomy class, causing much unnecessary worry to your prefect and housemates. Students may not be out past curfew, and students may not miss class without permission. I'm afraid you will need to sit a detention."

* * *

"Flitwick _never_ gives detention," Michael said, looking at Yehuda with something akin to awe.

He didn't answer. He kissed the _machzor_ and slid it onto his nightstand, and crumpled into bed before the burning in his throat could give way to tears.

* * *

**Glossary**

_Mizrach._ East.

_Yiush shelo midaas_, literally "despair without knowledge." When the owner of a lost item does not know that it has been lost (or does not know the circumstances surrounding the loss), but would have given up hope on finding it had he known.

_Rimon_. Pomegranate.

_Rosh Hashanah_. The Jewish New Year.

_Simanim_. Symbolic foods.

_Shehechiyanu_. Blessing made on a new fruit or other novel experience.

_Machzor_. Holiday prayer book.

_Brachos_. Blessings

_Seuda_. Banquet.

_Chazzan_. Cantor.

_Leining_. Torah reading.

_Akeida_. The binding of Isaac.

_Shofar_. Blowing of a ram's horn.

_Bar mitzvah_, literally "son of commandment." Age at which boys become responsible to keep the laws of Judaism.

_Mi Kel kamocha, nosei avon v'over al pesha l'sh'eiris nachalaso…_Who, God, is like you, forgiving sin and overlooking transgression for the remnant of his heritage (Micah 7:18).

_Pasuk_. Verse.

_Pikuach nefesh_. Life-threatening danger.

_Negel vasser_. Ritual morning handwashing.

_Kiddush_. Holiday blessing over wine.

_Haggadah shel Pesach_. Passover Seder text.

_Kol nidrei v'esorei u'shvuei v'charamei…u'd'ishtabana u'd'acharimna_. All vows, and prohibitions, and oaths, and consecrations…that have been sworn and that have been consecrated. (From the opening prayer of Yom Kippur, annulling past and future vows affecting only oneself.)

_Klaf_. Parchment.

_Alef-beis_. The Hebrew alphabet.

_Ksav Ashuris_, literally, "Assyrian script." A Hebrew handwriting style used for ritual items.

_Goyish_. Non-Jewish.

_Ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu_. We were guilty, we betrayed, we stole. (Beginning of an alphabetical confession prayer.)

_Selichos_. Poetic prayers for forgiveness.


	8. Chapter 8

**JKR owns HP**

**To YAF: **If you're waiting for action, don't hold your breath. This is a quiet, reflective story. For bangs and explosions, see the original.

**To Sairy: **Fear not, for time in fanfiction knows no sense of proportion.

**With thanks** to _Lady Carson_, _Ashton Brooke_, and _singingflame_ for their help developing Terry's character in this chapter.

**Disclaimer: **Opinions expressed are most emphatically those of the characters and not the author. This chapter contains the moralistic preaching of two religions, and an implied mild violation of _negiah_.

* * *

_See how good and how pleasant it is when brothers sit together (Psalms 133:1)_

* * *

Detention, it turned, out, was writing _People care about me and I must not worry them unnecessarily_ two hundred times, which was two hundred times harder than it sounded. He started straightaway after Shacharis and went to breakfast with an aching wrist.

But as news of his detention spread, he found that people looked at him differently. Eyes didn't rest on his _yarmulke_ before landing on his face, and when he took three steps back after Shemone Esrei, Stephen actually waved to him from the other end of the room. "Michael told me about Flitwick's detention—bleeding nasty of him, I'd say." A second-year girl saw him hunched over the common room table and laughed. "You got off lucky, Goldstein," she told him. "I got stuck clipping broom twigs for Madam Hooch." When he walked to History of Magic, first-years approached him, even some Hufflepuffs, and Justin Finch-Fletchley asked him how far along he was on the copying. He showed off the parchment with 75 carefully-printed lines.

_People care about me and I must not worry them unnecessarily._

_People care about me and I must not worry them unnecessarily._

_People care about me and I must not worry them unnecessarily._

_People care about me and I must not worry them unnecessarily._

He was met with wide eyes and sympathy and—_acceptance_. As he sat down and unrolled his new parchment, only Terry kept shooting him disapproving glances, looking as though he were itching to say something and only with the greatest of self-restraint was keeping silent. If he wanted to say something, why didn't he just _say_ it, Yehuda wondered as he took notes on the fatal duel between Emeric the Evil and Egbert the Egregious.

But the instant Professor Binns left, Terry cornered him. "You shouldn't be _showing off_ your detention lines. I would _never_ do something like that."

"Well, it's a good thing you're not the one with detention, then," Yehuda muttered.

"You're setting a bad example, you know," Terry said severely. "You're supposed to be letting God's light shine—"

"Shove off, Boot," Michael said loudly. Terry stalked away, throwing a moody glare at Yehuda over his shoulder. "Ignore him, Yehuda. He's just sore because you aren't best mates with him." Yehuda nodded, yes, Terry was only being a prat, but in his head he heard his mother scolding them at the zoo on Chol Hamoed: _Yehuda! Adina! Make a kiddush Hashem! _He frowned. Where had that come from?

At dinner, there was a sick pit in his stomach as he stared down at the calendar with an apple in one hand. Monday, _yud-dalet Tishrei_—there was no way around it. He was going to have to ask. Again. He shut the calendar and turned to his parchment, put aside the 175 finished lines and steadied a fresh roll.

_Bs"D_

_Dear Rabbi Zeller,_

He put the end of the quill into his mouth absently, then spluttered as his tongue realized that the thin feathery things on it were not a pen.

_1\. How do you build a sukkah?_

"Goldstein?" Kevin tapped him on the shoulder. "Flitwick's asking for you in his office as soon as you can."

"Er, thanks," he said calmly, feeling anything but calm. Why so soon? Lines at Torah Temima had _never _had such a close deadline. He dashed off the final twenty-five lines, his wrist cramping—_People care about me and I must not worry them unnecessarily_—and blotted the last words, and hurriedly rolled up the parchment to head for Flitwick's office.

"I've finished the lines," he blurted, and stopped short. Professor McGonagall sat beside Flitwick. Flitwick bounced in his seat with a smile as Yehuda walked in, but McGonagall's face remained staid as ever. He sat down, suddenly nervous.

"You've got another holiday on Monday, haven't you, Goldstein?" she said without preamble.

He almost fell off his chair. "How did you know?"

She ignored the question. "Obviously, we would all prefer minimal disruption to everyone's routines, and minimal—ah—_distress_ to yourself. So it has been decided that you will leave school for the holiday."

"And go home?" he said eagerly.

Flitwick looked pained. "Well, no, I'm afraid we can't do that, but we _can_ arrange for you to spend two days in the nearest town, what is it, Minerva?"

"Dufftown," McGonagall said crisply. "Accommodations will be arranged at the…" She glanced at the parchment in front of her. "At the Habad house. Professor Snape will accompany you on Monday afternoon—and, Goldstein, do try to keep it quiet, or the rest of the school will demand to know why they can't leave school as well."

"Yes, of course, I can do that," he babbled. "Thank you, thank you so much."

Flitwick laughed. "Thank us again when you come back to two days' missed work."

Not even that could burst his bubble. He handed over his lines ("Oh, you didn't have to finish so soon!" Flitwick exclaimed) as it slowly dawned on him that he was going, he was really going! Only two days, but a real _sukkah_, and kosher food, and a _minyan_! A little smile lifted the corners of his mouth as he floated out of the office.

_2\. Can I eat in a Chabad house?_

_3\. Should I go to class on Chol Hamoed?_

He had only six questions by Sunday afternoon but he borrowed a school owl anyway and sent the letter off. Davening _mincha _in his dormitory, he added a heartfelt _tefila_ for Hashem to help the owl get to Rabbi Zeller and back before he had to leave for Dufftown the next day.

But on Monday morning, the owl had not returned, and he was leaving that afternoon. He dressed with a flutter of excitement in his stomach, Kevin and Stephen left for Charms class, while Yehuda turned his back on the others and quietly, unobtrusively opened his overnight bag. "Yehuda?" Michael called. "Are you coming?"

"I'll be along," he said, folding his pyjamas into the bag. "Don't wait for me."

"All right." The door closed. He shook out a white shirt and carefully added it to the stack, then kissed his _machzor_ and laid it on top.

"What are you doing?" Terry asked.

Terry, _again_! He shoved the bag behind him. "Nothing."

"Are you packing? Where are you going?"

He sighed, gritting his teeth. "I'm leaving for two days. It's my holiday. Don't tell anyone, all right?"

"I won't," Terry said, "but wasn't it just your Jewish New Year a few days ago? Why do you need to go away this time? What's this one for?"

He was so angry he could barely move, but he shot a disgusted look over his shoulder at this Christian _goy _who thought he was so great. "What do you care? It's not _your_ holiday!"

Terry's eyes opened wide, but Yehuda had had enough. He drew the curtains around his bag with a vicious tug and left the tower as fast as he could, not looking back. Slipping into his seat beside Michael, he slammed his parchment and quill on the desk with unnecessary force. Michael eyed him curiously.

Terry came late to Charms, and Flitwick took two points from Ravenclaw. Yehuda busied himself with his note-taking so he didn't have to look up as Terry passed his desk.

After Herbology, he waited at the window as long as he possibly could, looking for Rabbi Zeller's owl, before Kevin came up to retrieve his _Magical Drafts &amp; Potions _and to say that if he wanted potatoes and peas there wasn't that much left. He ran downstairs after that, passing Terry without a word, and had to head straight down to Potions after that. Then he twitched throughout Defense Against the Dark Arts, too edgy to cast a proper _Lumos_, and the instant Professor Quirrel dismissed them, he rocketed out of his seat and back up to the dormitory to stick his head out the window and stare at a stubbornly empty gray sky.

He was to be in Flitwick's office at four-fifteen for Snape to take him to Dufftown. He paced. He wondered if he would make it in time for Yom Tov. His gaze alternated between the clock and the window and the Gemara in his hands. Four-ten. He tried his best to _chazer_. _Tanu rabanan, aizehu kara'ui v'aizehu shelo kara'ui? Deles sheyechola la'amod_...No owl. The overnight bag was starting to chafe at his shoulder..._b'ruach metzuya, zehu kara'ui. She'eina yechola la'amod b'ruach metzuya, zehu shelo kara'ui_**.** Four-twelve. He bit his lip, knelt on the windowsill and craned his neck. No owl.

The dormitory door opened.

"Were you looking for this?" Terry asked. He held out the envelope.

Rage flooded his chest and he could barely breathe. "You—you—" He snatched the envelope away. "You just had to wait for the last second, didn't you? Thought it was funny?"

Terry folded his arms. "Your owl came by at the end of lunch. I just took it for you. There's no need to get your knickers in a twist, it's only a letter from your rabbi."

He clenched his fist to stop himself slapping Terry across the face. "That's letting the light of God shine, huh?" he spat. And then he ran, heedless of who might see him or look at him strangely, still clutching the Gemara and letter, the overnight bag bouncing, only praying _please let me make it on time, Hashem, please let me make it on time_—burst into Flitwick's office without knocking, saw Snape and Flitwick gathered around something small on Flitwick's desk—was that a _teacup_?—and Flitwick pointed his wand at it.

"_Portus_."

"Well, Goldstein?" Snape stood with one finger lazily touching the teacup.

"What?" he said stupidly. He stood with his overnight bag slung over his shoulder, breathing hard, eyes roving the office. He _was _going to Dufftown, wasn't he?

Snape seized his wrist and placed his hand on the teacup. He fought the urge to giggle as Flitwick looked earnestly at the clock and said "_Now_!"

He felt something jerk in his belly, yanking him—what?—the room was gone and sky blurred past his eyes and his finger stuck to the teacup as his mouth opened in a silent scream, wind rushing past his face and then he hit the ground hard and fell to his knees on wet gravelly grass, scraping his palms. They were at the side of an asphalt road, surrounded by wide green fields and rolling hills. He scrambled to his feet. "Where are we?"

But Snape had already started walking. "Where are we going?" he asked, jogging after the professor, his bag bouncing against his side. He unzipped it to jam the Gemara and envelope on top of the pile.

"To the Chabad House," Snape said shortly. He walked faster, eyes fixed on a large house further down the road. Even from here Yehuda could see the _sukkah_ standing out front. "Come along, now."

Yehuda scrambled to catch up. Snape waited at the entrance, and with the flicker of an eyelid, indicated the door. "Go on."

He raised a fist hesitantly and knocked.

Once.

Twice.

He looked up at Snape, who looked away. He knocked again.

And then the door flung open to reveal a tall bearded man, knotting a tie over his suit and looking inquisitively at Yehuda. "_A Guten Erev Yom Tov,_" he said, with a thick Brooklyn accent. "Zalman Bronstein, Chabad of Dufftown, and you are—?"

"Yehuda G—" A wand prodded him warningly in the back. "Yehuda," he amended. "I go to school near here and I wanted somewhere to spend Sukkos."

"Well, you're certainly welcome here, it's always a pleasure to meet another _yid_." Zalman Bronstein darted a confused glance at Professor Snape, still draped in silent black behind Yehuda. "Will your father be staying as well?"

"No-no-no-no, he—he's—my _teacher_, no—" Yehuda spluttered. He looked desperately over his shoulder. Snape's face was expressionless. "He's just—dropping me off?"

"He has already dropped you off." Snape turned to go. "Someone will pick you up on Wednesday. Good afternoon, Yehuda."

And he was gone, leaving Yehuda alone in the front hallway of a strange house in the middle of north Scotland.

"Well! Quite the friendly one, isn't he?" Zalman Bronstein looked at his young guest.

"He's all right," Yehuda said stiffly.

Zalman cleared his throat awkwardly and beckoned to Yehuda, moving quickly down the hallway. "Here, let me take your bag. We have an empty bed in this room—Gavriel's here too, Yanky's training him in as a mashgiach over at the Glencallan distillery in town." Zalman knocked. "Gavriel? You're in there?"

The door swung open. A tall _yeshiva bochur_ stood there in his undershirt, still holding a shaver in one hand. "Shalom aleichem," he said to the air over Yehuda's head, before looking down. "Oh. Hello."

"This is Yehuda, he'll be sharing your room, all right?" Zalman dropped Yehuda's bag on the second bed.

"Wait!" Yehuda stammered. "What about—at home I—"

"Sleep in the _sukkah_?" Zalman waved his concerns away as he backed out of the room. "You can start out there, but you know the forecast's calling for rain, what else is new?" He shut the door. They heard him humming down the hallway.

"Where are your parents?" Gavriel asked curiously, turning back to the mirror.

The lie came easily now. "I'm in school near here. It's too far to go home for Yom Tov." He turned away, hoping his very posture would broadcast _Don't ask me why I'm in a non-Jewish school._

The bathroom was small, but appointed exactly like a hotel room, with towels fanning out in a careful flower shape and soaps and shampoos on a shelf in the stall. He showered, toweled dry, and dressed in his Shabbos suit. Then he went cautiously into the hallway to see just what a Chabad house was all about. He passed a young man and woman in jeans in the hallway, practically entwined and talking quietly in Hebrew; pacing in the stairwell was a man in a knitted _yarmulke_ holding a shrieking baby over his shoulder. In the kitchen, he saw a woman, older than Esti but younger than his mother, and behind her on the wall, a telephone. His heart leapt. "Excuse me. Mrs. … Bronstein?"

She looked up. Her face was red and sweaty and she held a potholder and a tray of challos and was halfway turning around to stir a pot. "Yes? Oh—I don't think we've met. Have you just come?"

"Uh—yes, ma'am. I'm Yehuda. I was wondering if I could use your phone before Yom Tov."

She set the challos down on the counter. "Yes, of course. Do you need long-distance? We have a calling card."

"That's all right," he said, hoping that didn't give him away. He took the phone and dialed, his fingers shaking with excitement. It rang, once, twice, and then Esti's breathless voice came on. "Hello?"

"Esti?"

"Yehuda!" she shouted. "Oh my goodness—Mummy, Yehuda's on the phone!" He heard a frantic flurry of activity in the background, a jumble of his mother's and Adina's voices, before his mother came on, breathless. "Hello?"

"Mummy? It's Yehuda!" He wanted nothing more than to spill out everything that had happened since the Hogwarts Express had pulled out of Kings Cross, but, mindful of Esti and Adina, he chose his words carefully. "I'm at the Bronsteins for Yom Tov. How is everyone—everything?"

"Baruch Hashem, everyone's well," his mother said. "We got your letter, Rabbi Zeller passed it on to us—Esti, please hang up the extension—"

He heard the phone clatter onto its base before his mother took a deep breath. "So. How is it there? They've let you leave for Sukkos, I see. Are you keeping up with your learning? Is there kosher food?"

"Yes, they've sent me to a Chabad house, everyone's been lovely so far." He didn't mention the magic traveling teacup. "Did Tatty get the sheets I sent him?"

"Yes, he's looking them over. You're working hard?"

He looked over his shoulder. Mrs. Bronstein was carrying a stack of dishes out of the room, and though he heard distant conversation, the kitchen was now empty. "Yes—there's lots to learn! I've changed a matchstick into a needle, and they're teaching us to fly broomsticks."

His mother sighed.

"And, er, yeah, I'm up to _shomer aveida_ with Tatty," he finished awkwardly, remembering that Jews weren't supposed to do magic.

"And kosher food?" His mother sounded anxious.

"Right. Rabbi Zeller and I are trying to work out the cooking—" _like if house-elves qualify for bishul akum_— "but in the meantime, could you send me some recipes of things I could make on my own?"

She laughed. "Of course."

They spoke for a little while longer while the clock ticked—yes, he'd made a friend; yes, the dormitory was comfortable—and he said Good Yom Tov to each of his siblings, and when his father came home they put him on and he blurted everything he possibly could in Mrs. Bronstein's presence. Then his family was going to light, so he hung up, blinking, swallowing, because he was much too old to cry. Zalman handed him a _lulav_ and a cardboard box. He stared, openmouthed, and wished he could pay for it, but he had no money and probably Zalman wouldn't know what to make of Sickles and Galleons.

Slowly people trickled into a large dining room, while Mrs. Bronstein set up candles on a table in the corner. They were going to light now—finally he'd get to see exactly how you were supposed to do it. Yehuda watched carefully as the American woman waved her hands around the flames and beside her, the lady in the hat did the same. Mrs. Bronstein turned away from the candles. "Noa? Jessica? Would you like to light candles too?"

"All right, let's see what we've got!" Yehuda tore his eyes to the other side of the room, where the men were assembled, and he hovered on the edge of the group. "You don't look _bar mitzvah_," the knitted-yarmulke man said apologetically. "Do we have a minyan?"

Zalman counted the little cluster: _hoshia, es, amecha_, and yes, they had a _minyan_, but just barely: Zalman and Gavriel; two jeans-clad boys, Aaron and Jonathan, from a college nearby; an American tourist named Menachem and his son; the Israeli boy, Yaron, who was almost joined at the hip to the girl he'd come with. There were another three mashgichim, Eitan, Fishel, and Yanky—the knitted _yarmulke_ and a _chassid_, and a normal black-hatted bloke like Tatty—and that made ten.

He stood swaying and looking into his Sukkos machzor as Rabbi Radovsky intoned _kaddish _and Fishel screwed his face in concentration. He called out "Amen,_ yehei shemei rabba mevorach_!" his high-pitched boy's voice mingling with the group. When they were finished, they filed into the _sukkah_ on rickety cushioned folding chairs. The American tourist family, and the black-hatted and knitted-yarmulke mashgichim and their wives, sat separately. Yehuda squirmed small in his seat beside Gavriel, avoiding the eyes of the Israeli girl across.

"I'm going to make four blessings now," Zalman announced. "First, the _hagafen_ blessing on wine. Then, a special blessing thanking God for giving us the holiday of Sukkos—"

"—_v'az bracha meyuchedet lehodot laKel al shenatan lanu chag haSukkot_," the girl whispered to Yaron.

"—and lastly, the blessing of _Shehechiyanu_, for special occasions." Zalman stood, and around the table chairs rustled in the grass as they all got to their feet. "_Baruch atah Hashem Elokeinu, melech haolam, borei pri hagafen!_"

"Amen!" The echoing response filled the sukkah.

"…_Vatitein lanu Hashem Elokeinu b'ahava moadim l'simcha, chagim u'zmanim l'sasson, es yom chag haSukkos hazeh, zman simchaseinu, mikra kodesh_…"

A time of our joy, Yehuda translated in his head. He smiled, because it finally made sense. Not of hiding in the corner of the dormitory, not of eating apples for dinner, not a list of rules, but _chagim u'zmanim l'sasson_.

"…_mekadesh Yisrael v'hazmanim!_"

"Amen!" Yehuda called out, and his voice was joined by Gavriel's and Yaron's and the others, in a powerful strong call that almost took his breath away as it reverberated into the night.

"_Baruch atah Hashem Elokeinu, melech haolam, asher kideshanu b'mitzvosav v'tzivanu leishev basukkah!_"

"Amen!"

Zalman and his wife served, rolling out first platters of salmon and then chicken soup in tureens. _S'chach_ pressed in and the sky was dark behind it. It smelled sweet, like rain. Yehuda quietly ate chicken soup, half-listening to the grown-ups' talk. Yaron's English was halting, and the girl, Noa, kept interrupting the conversation to translate for him in a flood of incomprehensible Hebrew. Mrs. Radovsky's sharp American accent cut jarringly through a soft stream of talk.

"Nu, anyone has a _d'var Torah _for us?" Zalman looked around. "Yehuda?"

He jerked upright. "What? I—I don't—"

"Ah, lay off him, Rabbi Bronstein," Gavriel laughed. "I'll do it." He got to his feet and looked around. "So, why do we sit in a _sukkah_? It's meant to remind us of the _ananei hakavod_—the clouds of glory," he translated in Jonathan's direction. "So why now, in September? Why not Pesach time—Passover—the time of year when we actually used the clouds? The answer is that we eat and sleep outside right after the New Year, so if God declared exile on us, we'll be exiled this way."

If Hashem had declared exile on him, Yehuda thought, this was certainly not it. Exile was Hogwarts. _This_ was where he belonged. Yaron seemed to agree. "_Korim l'zeh galut_?" he scoffed, gesturing at the tables of upturned faces, softly glowing in the candlelight from the corner of the _sukkah_.

"Very good!" Gavriel beamed at him. "How can you call a wonderful group and delicious food like this an exile? Because the point of everything over Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is that there's no power in the world but Hashem—God. So on Sukkos, we leave the safety of our house and move into a temporary hut with grass for a roof, showing that we only need God to protect us. Not doors and locks, not the walls of a house—only God can protect us, no matter what the situation! _Gut Yom Tov_."

"_Shkoyach!_" the _chassidish_ mashgiach said approvingly. He banged a fist on the table and started to sing. "_Kah Ribon Olam_…" Yanky joined in, and then Eitan and Gavriel and Zalman. They were using the tune he used at home, and Yehuda dared to hum along, first quietly, and then he opened his mouth and sang with the others at the top of his lungs. "_Ra-a-avrevi-i-in o-o-ovdeich v'saki-i-ifin…_"

It began to rain, water dripping off the _s'chach_. With good-natured grumbling they managed to collect the food and dishes and move inside. Yehuda yawned his way across the lawn and stumbled into a seat for dessert and _bentching_.Through a haze of drowsiness Gavriel steered him to their room and he felt covers tuck over him and sleep overtake him and his eyes drifted closed, not quite home, but among family, at last.

* * *

"Yehuda?" Someone was shaking him. "Yehuda, wake up."

"It's my holiday," he mumbled. "I don't have to go to class."

"It's Gavriel." He sounded embarrassed. "They want to _daven_ in twenty minutes. Do you want to get up?"

"Huh?" He pushed himself to sit up, and it all flooded back: Chabad house of Dufftown, four _mashgichim _and two of their wives and five college students and an American tourist couple. Sukkos. Before he could stop himself, a huge, silly smile spread across his face. He flung himself out of bed, pulled a white shirt over his head and grabbed his yarmulke from the bedside, and thirty seconds later was out the door.

"Wow, that was fast," Gavriel said.

The _Yom Tov _passed quickly, so calm and familiar that the magic school was a distant memory. He sat on a folding chair in the sukkah and reviewed his Mishnayos with Gavriel, in the familiar shouted give-and-take of his school at home, and Gavriel helped him find the sources in Rabbi Zeller's letter. They pored over the Shulchan Aruch and Mishna Berurah and Shaar Hatzion and Yehuda tried to decide if he could put together a _sukkah_ on Hogwarts' grounds—a skylight was probably his best bet. He slept in the sukkah on a clear night, pulling the covers up to his chin and listening to the whisper of other people's _kerias Shema. _He davened surrounded by other Jews, and followed along in the _leining_.

But through the spaces between pine branches and bamboo the sky gradually darkened and turned pink and then violet and deepened to navy, and he could not hold on to Yom Tov forever.

"…_hamavdil bein kodesh l'chol_!"

There was a knock at the door.

"I can get it," Noa offered. "Hello—oh!" She sounded startled. Yehuda darted into the doorway of the _sukkah_ and stopped short. In his black batlike robes, Snape looked utterly out of place in Chabad of Dufftown; he looked downright terrifying. Noa took a step backward.

"Good evening." Snape spoke quietly. "I'm here for Yehuda."

"Oh—Professor." His heart sank. He'd forgotten. At the end of all this he'd be going back to Hogwarts. "Let me get my things. I'll be right out."

"Take some food," Mrs. Bronstein urged, thrusting pastries and leftovers into a tin. "Surely they aren't feeding you enough there—"

Yehuda ran upstairs to his bedroom. Gavriel followed. As he grabbed his _lulav _and stuffed his shirt into the bag (his mother would cringe if she saw) and headed toward the door, Gavriel stopped him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Listen, I don't mean to interfere," he said quietly, "but something about that chap doesn't look right. You want me to call anyone for you? Are you sure this is all _kosher v'yosher_?"

Yehuda laughed at the rhyme. He met Gavriel's eyes, trying to sound confident. "Yes, it's fine. He's my teacher at school, a bit cold, but he's all right. Don't worry—I'll see you here second days, all right?"

He walked back into exile with his _esrog _box under one arm, overnight bag over his shoulder, and a tin of hot chicken and _challah _and cake in his hand, humming _Kah Ribon Olam_ under his breath. Nothing, not even Snape's stony silence, not even the cold drizzle pelting his face, not even the thought of all the work he'd have to make up, none of that could pop the little golden bubble glowing the center of his chest. Not doors and locks, he thought, not the walls of a house—only God could protect him.

* * *

Nothing spelled "acceptance" like walking into the Ravenclaw common room at nine o'clock at night, holding palm fronds, willow branches, myrtle leaves, and a citron in a cardboard box, and not even getting a second glance. He unpacked, then came downstairs to stare resignedly at the rolls of parchment Michael had left for him.

"_Wingardium Leviosa_," Michael said, plunking himself into the seat opposite. He pulled out his wand to demonstrate. "It's wing-_gar_-di-um, and you do more of a slow swish, like this." Yehuda copied, but his swish was more of a slash. "No, _slowly_. Then lev-i-_o_-sa, you do a—a sort of upward flick, from your wrist."

"Win_gar_dium Levi_o_sa," Yehuda muttered under his breath. "Win_gar_dium Levi_o_sa, Win_gar_dium Levi_o_sa…"

"You ought to write it down," Michael pointed out. "Flitwick said it might be important."

There was no way out of this one. "Oh—right." He picked up the quill in his left hand and clumsily, sloppily wrote _Wingardium Leviosa_ and underlined it. The underlining zigzagged awkwardly through the letters. _WinGARdium, slow swish, LeviOsa_—

"You're writing funny," Michael said.

He nodded noncommittally. "Yeah." _Upward flick from wrist_. He jabbed an inelegant backhanded period at the end of the sentence and looked up. "_Wingardium Leviosa!_" The quill twitched and lifted one end off the table.

"Well done," Michael commented. "In class absolutely no one managed it on the first try."

Yehuda eyed him dubiously. "Not even that Gryffindor girl?"

"Gryffindor isn't up to levitation yet." Michael shifted the stack of parchment. "We're ahead. And have you seen Transfiguration? We're starting on live animals this week, so there were rolls and rolls of notes. Teacups into rats, starting tomorrow morning."

Yehuda groaned. "What about flying lessons, did we do anything there?"

"Oh!" Michael grew animated. "You were here Friday morning, weren't you? Did you see Potter's new broom? A Nimbus Two Thousand, lucky git. They've made him Seeker for the Gryffindor Quidditch team."

"Potter…Harry Potter?" Confused by the foreign terminology, he latched onto the one fact he knew for certain. "But first-years aren't allowed to have broomsticks. The letter said."

"Well, yeah, but you know, _Harry Potter_ and all…" Michael rolled his eyes, clearly expecting Yehuda to do the same.

"He's that skinny Gryffindor boy with the messy hair, isn't he?" Yehuda asked. "What's so special about him?"

"Merlin, you really _don't_ know anything. Well, you know we learn Defense Against the Dark Arts? There was a wizard who went Dark, 'round twenty years ago, tried to take over the wizarding world. It was dangerous times, then—he killed anyone who tried to stop him. People say he was mad, but he was really powerful, and really evil."

"What was his name?" Yehuda asked.

Michael looked uneasy. "We don't like to say it, much. Most wizards just call him You-Know-Who. They say Dumbledore's the only one who could properly fight him. Then ten years ago he went after Harry Potter's parents and killed them, then he tried to kill Harry, but he couldn't. Nobody knows why. That's why he's got that scar—it's from when You-Know-Who tried to kill him." Michael traced a lightning bolt on his forehead.

This had _definitely_ not been in McGonagall's introduction, and Yehuda was quite sure he knew why. Had his parents known about Dark magic and evil murdering wizards, there was no way, no matter what Rabbi Zeller or Professor McGonagall said, that they would have put him on the train to Hogwarts. "Is You-Know-Who—dead, then?"

Michael bit his lip. "Probably."

"_Probably?_"

"Well, nobody's seen him in ten years…"

"Lights out, boys." Robert Hilliard's hand landed on his shoulder. "It's curfew for first-years."

Yehuda gathered his things together and followed Michael back to the dormitory. "Why wouldn't he be dead, then?"

Michael shrugged. "He was powerful. And nobody ever got in his way before Harry Potter, nobody knows exactly what happened except that Harry Potter didn't die when everyone else did, and You-Know-Who was gone. But if anyone could _not_ be dead, it would be You-Know-Who."

Yehuda shivered as they entered the dormitory, then stopped, trying not to stare. Kevin and Stephen were in pyjamas, but Terry knelt beside his bed and drew a big cross from his forehead to his shoulders. He clasped his hands together and bowed his head, whispering under his breath. Yehuda looked away, then stared at him, then looked away again. Then Michael blew out his candle and drew the curtains around his bed, cutting off his view of Terry.

He shook his head, clearing it, and pulled the nightstand to the edge of his bed. He stared at the parchments for a moment before tucking his _peyos_ behind his ears and getting to work. _Herbicide Potion_, Michael had written._ See Magical Drafts &amp; Potions, pg 44. Kills/damages plants. People should not eat it because it tastes awful and also might affect your health. _The quill was awkward in his left hand, and the list of ingredients sloped haphazardly down the margin of the page.

It was very late by the time he finished copying over the notes, and his eyes burned a little from staring at candlelight while the rest of the room was dark. He got into his pyjamas and into bed, but pulled out Rabbi Zeller's letter one last time. If he really wanted to put together a _sukkah_ tomorrow, he would have to think fast.

_Dear Yehuda,_

_Do bear in mind that you aren't yet bar mitzvah._

_1\. Shulchan Aruch siman 632, seif 1_. All right, he would have to find a skylight that was less than six feet away from three walls, with a space of seven by seven _tefachim_ to put _s'chach_ on top of. _Shulchan Aruch siman 630, seif 13, _the rabbi had written._ See also Mishna Berurah 59; Shaar Hatzion 60. _He would have a hard time finding a beam to support the _s'chach_, but Gavriel had said that was only _lechatchila_. He yawned and rubbed his eyes.

He got up to put away the letter, and looked long and hard at Terry's sleeping form before he said _kerias Shema_, with rather more concentration than he might have otherwise.

* * *

**Glossary**

_Negiah. _Laws of touch between genders.

_Shacharis_. Morning prayers.

_Yarmulke_. Skullcap.

_Chol Hamoed_. Intermediate holiday.

_Kiddush Hashem_, literally "making holy the name [of God]." Cause for admiration of God and the Jewish people.

_Yud-dalet Tishrei_. The fourteenth day of the Hebrew month Tishrei. (Sukkos eve.)

_Bs"D_, abbreviation for _B'siyata Dishmaya_. With the help of Heaven.

_Sukkah_. Outdoor plant-roofed hut built for the eponymous holiday of Sukkos (see below).

_Minyan_. Prayer group of ten adult Jewish men.

_Chabad house_. Jewish outpost of Lubavitch Hassidic affiliation.

_Mincha_. Afternoon prayers.

_Tefila_. Prayer.

_Machzor_. Holiday prayer book.

_Chazer._ Review.

_Tanu rabanan, aizehu kara'ui v'aizehu shelo kara'ui? Deles sheyechola la'amod..._Our rabbis taught, what is considered [secured] properly? A door that can stand...

_B'ruach metzuya, zehu kara'ui. She'eina yechola la'amod b'ruach metzuya, zehu shelo kara'ui_. ...in an ordinary wind, this is considered [secured] properly. One that cannot stand in an ordinary wind, this is not considered [secured] properly.

_Sukkos_. Festival of Tabernacles. (If you know what a tabernacle is, you're reading way too much Artscroll.)

_Guten Erev Yom Tov_. Happy holiday eve.

_Yid_. Jew.

_Mashgiach_. Supervisor of commercial kosher food production.

_Shalom aleichem_, literally "peace to you." Hello.

_Shabbos_. The Sabbath.

_Challos_. Braided holiday bread.

_Yom Tov_. Holiday.

_Tatty_. Daddy.

_Shomer aveida. _Guardian of a [lost] object.

_Bishul akum_. Food cooked by a non-Jew.

_Lulav._ Date palm frond.

_Bar mitzvah_, literally "son of the commandment." Age thirteen, at which Jewish boys become adults responsible to keep the laws.

_Hoshia, es, amecha_, literally "save your people" (Psalm 28:9). A ten-word verse used to number the members of a minyan in order to avoid counting Jews directly (see Yoma 22b).

_Chassid_. Hasid.

_Kaddish. _A prayer of praise to God.

_Amen, yehei shemei rabba mevorach_. Amen, may his great name be blessed.

_Hagafen_, literally "the vine." Blessing on grape derivatives.

_V'az bracha meyuchedet lehodot laKel al shenatan lanu chag haSukkot_. And then a special blessing to thank God for giving us the holiday of Sukkos. (Modern Hebrew.)

_Shehechiyanu_, literally "who has kept us alive." Blessing on novel experiences.

_Baruch atah Hashem Elokeinu, melech haolam, borei pri hagafen_. Blessed are you, the Lord our God, ruler of the world, who creates the fruit of the vine.

_Vatitein lanu Hashem Elokeinu b'ahava moadim l'simcha, chagim u'zmanim l'sasson, es yom chag haSukkos hazeh, zman simchaseinu, mikra kodesh…mekadesh Yisrael v'hazmanim_. And you gave us, the Lord our God, with love, occasions for happiness and holidays and times for joy, this day of the Sukkos holiday, a time of our joy, a holy assembly…Who sanctifies Yisrael and the seasons.

_Baruch atah Hashem Elokeinu, melech haolam, asher kideshanu b'mitzvosav v'tzivanu leishev basukkah_. Blessed are you, the Lord our God, king of the world, who has sanctified us with his commandments and commanded us to sit in the sukkah.

_S'chach_. Plant life used as the sukkah roof.

_D'var Torah_. Torah thought or interpretation.

_Korim l'zeh galut? _You call this exile?

_Shkoyach_. Short for _yasher koach_. Good job.

_Chassidish_. Hasidic.

_Kah Ribon Olam…ravrevin ovdeich v'sakifin_. Creator and master of this world…great are your works and mighty. Holiday song.

_Bentching_. Recitation of grace after meals.

_Daven_. Pray.

_Mishnayos_. The Mishna.

_Shulchan Aruch, Mishna Berurah, Shaar Hatzion_. Various halachic reference books.

_Kerias Shema. _Bedtime prayers.

_Leining_. Communal Torah reading.

_Hamavdil bein kodesh l'chol_. Who differentiates between holy and secular. Holiday conclusion blessing.

_Kosher v'yosher_, literally "proper and straight." Idiomatically, legitimate.

_Second days_. The last two days of Sukkos, separated from the first two by five days of intermediate holiday.

_Esrog_. Citron.

_Challah_. Singular form of challos.

_Palm fronds, willow branches, myrtle leaves, and a citron in a cardboard box_. See Leviticus 23:40.

_In his left hand_. During intermediate holiday, work restrictions are lessened but not lifted entirely.

_Peyos_. Sidelocks.

_Tefachim_. Halachic units of measurement roughly equivalent to handbreadths.

_Lechatchila. _Preferred in the first place but not required, similar to _ab initio_.

* * *

So, worth the wait?


	9. Chapter 9

**JKR owns HP**

**With thanks **to _always keep your towel _for help developing the Patil twins' characters, and to _TheWizardsHarry_'s "Thou Shalt Not Suffer" for inspiring Cedric Diggory's appearance in this chapter.

**Disclaimer: **Opinions expressed are those of the characters and not the author. Chapter contains references to the practices of religions other than Judaism. Halachic statements have not been evaluated by a rabbinical authority and are intended for entertainment purposes only. For any practical concerns, as always, CYLOR.

* * *

_Place our lot with theirs forever, and we will not be ashamed for belief in you ("On the righteous," thirteenth blessing of the Amidah)_

* * *

_Hello, Yehuda. I hope Yom Tov was enjoyable._

He yawned, rubbing his eyes, and tried to focus. The house-elf waited patiently in front of him, hands folded, head bowed.

_The problem of bishul akum can be easily solved—see Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 38, se'if 2. The exception is wine and grape derivatives, as in Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, siman 47__. _He winced. He hadn't even thought about grape juice. _However, if your kitchen workers are not able to marry human beings, there is no prohibition at all. See Igros Moshe, Yoreh Deah 1, siman 45, and follow his logic there. Where intermarriage is impossible, the restrictions are lifted._

"Remmy?" He scuffed his shoe against the kitchen floor, not daring to make eye contact. "Do house-elves ever marry people?"

The house-elf looked startled, and his huge tennis-ball eyes grew even wider. He broke into a fit of coughing, bent double at the waist, and for a second Yehuda wondered if he was choking on shock. He bent down, just as the house-elf straightened, with a grimace. "No, master Goldstein, they is not."

Yehuda exhaled. He had enough on his plate without throwing twigs into the fire every morning. "Right," he said. "For me to eat the food, there's a lot of rules I have to follow."

"Kosher," the house-elf murmured.

"Right. First of all..." He hesitated. It sounded rude, but Hilliard had said you had to phrase it like a command, so they would _have _to listen. "You have to make my food separately, and serve it on separate pots and plates and...everything. New ones, that weren't used yet. All right?"

The house-elf nodded.

Yehuda averted his eyes. "And if you use eggs, you have to check them for blood spots and if they have, you can't use them. Please," he added awkwardly. "And you have to check the vegetables for bugs. Lettuce and that sort of thing. If there's bugs you have to wash them off really carefully."

"Yes, master Goldstein."

"One more thing." He winced, knowing this made three-quarters of everything served completely off-limits to whoever was making his food. "You can't serve me meat. Ever. Or pole..." He squinted at the rabbi's handwriting. "Or poultry. Or anything that touched meat or poultry, or cooked in the same pots or the same oven as it. And if you use fish, it has to be fish that have fins and scales. I'm going to come to the kitchen every few days just to make sure of everything."

Remmy repeated the rules back to Yehuda: separate, new dishes; check eggs; check vegetables; no meat or poultry; fins and scales. Then he beckoned to—was it Ezzy? Buckley? He couldn't tell them apart—and whispered in his big batlike ear. Yehuda watched anxiously as the house-elf cracked the egg into a glass and squinted at it, then tipped it into the frying pan. The smell of sweet onions filled the kitchen.

"Remmy! You is needing to fill the bread basket for the Gryffindor table!"

Fill the bread basket? Eight-forty already! He came upstairs just in time to slip unobtrusively into the throng of black school robes pouring through the Great Hall doors. The hall smelled like eggs and butter and fresh bread. Michael was sitting with a couple of other first-years—Stephen, some of the girls—and two second-years were leaning over to listen as well. He took a seat, overhearing snatches of conversation about numbers and math, and took a deep breath. He touched his plate with his wand—_Hashem, please let this work_—

The omelet appeared.

He exhaled—_thank You!_—and made a very fervent _Shehakol_. Pouring a glass of juice, he listened to the conversation with half an ear. Stephen had wanted to run back to the Tower for his _History of Magic_, but the new riddle had something to do with fractions and infinity and he didn't know what that was, and Cho was trying to explain how to divide by zero. The smaller you divided _by_, the bigger the aswer, so it made sense that dividing by nothing would get you a really, really big number—

"No more holidays, Yehuda?" one of the girls asked. "We haven't seen you in class in awhile."

"It just seems like that. Yesterday was the last one," he said. "No more for two months, and I'm not going to skive off for Chanukah. You're stuck with me…" He couldn't remember her name, and trailed off awkwardly. "Mandy."

"At least now you'll be able to make up all that wor—" Michael dropped his fork. "You're _eating_!"

Yehuda laughed. "Oh, you're right! I hadn't noticed!"

"Oh, shut it, Goldstein. It's kosher now?"

He hesitated before settling on a simple "Yes."

They went to History of Magic, and he wondered what the class would be like if it were taught by a living person. The history of magic ought to be interesting, but instead he was writing endless scritch-scratch notes with his palm sweaty from leaning his head on it, listening to Professor Binns drone on and on about the witch Morgana who had also been known as Morgan le Fay and was the older half-sister to King Arthur through his mother Lady Igraine and the Duke of Cornwall and although Morgana was a rival to Merlin she had been unfairly maligned in the Muggle version of history due to Arthur's mistrusting her prodigious abilities as did all dull religious people of that which did not fit their narrow definition of the world—

Yehuda jerked awake.

"King Arthur's attitude would, of course, be taken up later in the Middle Ages by many so-called people of faith," Binns continued. "The Council of Trullo in 692 and the Council of Paderborn in 785 exemplified this approach, alternating in the span of a century between penalizing the practice of magic and refusing to acknowledge its existence. With wizardry its prime target, religion engendered narrowmindedness and intolerance of anything its followers could not understand."

No, he hadn't imagined _that_. He stopped writing, and instead began to trace _k'sav Ashuris _letters down the margin of his notes, knowing somehow that he should not, could not, let Professor Binns's words travel through his head, down his shoulder, and out his hand into permanence on the parchment. Michael glanced at the sudden Hebrew, then turned his head to look at Yehuda in confusion. Yehuda saw understanding dawn as his eyes widened. He looked back at his notes, his heart pounding. He had to say something. He was keenly aware of Michael looking at him expectantly. He couldn't just sit here and let Professor Binns make a _chillul Hashem_. He had to say something…

He swallowed hard, feeling sick. He was a coward, the biggest coward, he had to say _some_thing—

"It provided a convenient reason to vent frustrations—"

"That's not true."

Heat flamed instantly up the back of Yehuda's neck.

Terry Boot sat straight in his seat, his eyes narrowed. "That's not true," he said. "It could be that some religious people used their beliefs as an excuse to do nasty things, but I don't think it's fair to say that faith is only for dull people who make up stories to feel good. Are we even going to learn what religion says, or are we just going to make fun of it?"

The question hung tense in the air, a challenge flung down between the boy and the professor.

"I believe I am the one teaching this class, Mr. Bugle!" Binns said acidly. Yehuda stared down at his parchment, and the back of his neck burned. "I teach _facts_, not fairytales and legends. There is nothing to be gained from inventing myths to explain the inexplicable, and nothing to learn from people who do so. This subject is _History_ of Magic, and it is based in nothing but fact. If you don't like it, you can leave."

There was a terrible silence.

And Terry slammed his _History of Magic_ shut and walked out of the room.

Yehuda's knuckles curled white around his quill. "Morgana was an Animagus in the form of a bird, particularly skilled at healing, and, in a rare combination, the Dark Arts as well," Binns went on tonelessly, and the classroom shifted uneasily. "Astute enough to avoid surrendering her critical thinking to the same rigid thinking as Arthur—" That should have been you, Yehuda told himself. Get up. Leave. Get _up_. His knees felt like jelly. Make a kiddush Hashem, he thought dizzily. Leave. But instead there was a soft rustle behind him, as Padma Patil stood. She looked at the floor as she walked, her shoes clicking on the tiles, and quietly closed the door behind her.

The eyes of Ravenclaw House seared into his back, his yarmulke, expectant, waiting. They wanted him to stand. They wanted him to put his _Yiddishkeit_ on display for everyone to see. Like Terry. _Dear Rabbi Zeller,_ Yehuda thought miserably, _is it good or bad to make a fuss over being Jewish?_

Mechanically, he listed all the healing draughts Morgana had invented, his whole body shaking. They were watching him, they were thinking about him. He watched his hand write what his ears heard, and the instant Professor Binns shuffled the first page of notes back to the beginning, barely opening his mouth to say "dismi—" Yehuda bolted from the room. He stood shaking in an alcove on the fourth floor, his mind blank of everything but a terrified mixture of embarrassment and guilt, until he heard the Transfiguration classroom door click shut. He slipped inside, earning a disapproving glance from Professor McGonagall and a seat in the back beside a Chinese girl whose name he couldn't remember.

Breathe, all right? Breathe. Nothing had happened. Terry had spoken up, Padma had left the room. The chillul Hashem had been stopped, not by him, but that wasn't important. Nothing had happened. Everything was all right. Breathe. He could do that. Breathe…_breathe_…in…out…in…out…in…out. He was in the Transfiguration classroom. _Breathe…in…out. _They were learning the transformation formula. Everything was all right.

A teapot was plunked down in front of him. The Chinese girl flicked her wand and produced whiskers, but not much more. He watched without really looking as her second attempt caused the handle to turn soft and furry. By the third, it had become a real tail. She nudged him, and he flinched away. "Are you going to try at all?"

Right. Transfiguration. He edged his chair a little to the side and pointed his wand, visualizing the rat, but it took him four tries to even turn it grey.

There was a smattering of applause when Terry and Padma came to lunch, mostly from the Hufflepuff table, while Gryffindor and half of Ravenclaw looked on with curiosity. Yehuda watched them with discomfort—envy?—as Terry beamed and Padma ducked her head.

Not everyone was impressed, though. "So, someone's finally interrupted Binns?" Marcus yawned as Yehuda took his seat.

"He does it every year," a second-year girl explained to Michael. "At least I think he does…people fall asleep in his class, so he can say whatever he wants."

An older Hufflepuff boy came over from the nearby table and held out his hand for Terry to shake. "Terry Boot, right? I'm Cedric Diggory. I know McGonagall gave you the rundown, but you never approached any of us, so consider this a formal invitation. Would you like to join us for chapel services on Sunday in the Great Hall before breakfast?"

Terry's face lit up with a grin too big for his mouth. "You mean it?"

"Of course. We'll be going to Hogsmeade village in two weeks, and we sometimes meet at the chapel there for a real service. I'd show you around if you were a bit older—"

"Professor McGonagall's given me permission to go to the chapel," Terry broke in eagerly.

"Well, that's settled, then, I'll see you on the twenty-sixth. Goldstein!" Diggory noticed him as well. Yehuda flinched in surprise, hoping he hadn't been staring. "You're religious, too, aren't you?"

"Oh, no, it wasn't _him_," Terry said. "It was _her_." He pointed his chin a few seats down. Padma was talking to her sister, who'd come over from the Gryffindor table to high-five her. They were joined by a third, older girl from the Slytherin table, and all of them were laughing. Yehuda averted his gaze. It wasn't him. It was her.

"Say, Yehuda." Michael jarred him back to reality, looking at him with interest. "You know everyone thought it would be you to make the fuss. You're the one with the _kippah_, blessing your wine and waving around that lemon thing. Why _didn't_ you walk out?"

He felt hot, trapped. "Because I didn't want to, all right?!"

"Whoa, mate." Michael held his hands up in mock defense. "You don't have to bite my head off."

He wanted to apologize, but Michael was already talking to Stephen. It wasn't that he didn't _want_ to tell anyone why he hadn't walked out, but that he _couldn't_. How could he answer Michael when he couldn't even explain it to himself?

* * *

Over the next week, he slowly, slowly got used to it. He'd wake up at a quarter to eight, _daven_ in the common room or in the dormitory or once in awhile on the front lawn. Then he'd head downstairs to the kitchen to play _mashgiach_ while the house-elves scurried and squealed good mornings. He ate fresh food he hadn't even realized he was missing: vegetable soup, kippers, fish and chips. There wasn't much to do about meat, but the food was warm and good and appeared promptly on his plate at every meal, and all he had to do was pop into the kitchen every few days.

On Monday, when Hallel and Mussaf Rosh Chodesh made him stay in the common room a little later, he returned Hilliard's "Good morning!" with a smile and a wave. He bounced down the stairways to the kitchen, remembering to jump the trick step, waved to the Grey Lady, and swung around the grand staircase. "Good morning, Remmy—"

He froze in the doorway as a girl in a long dark braid stacked packages of noodles, her back to him, and passed them across the counter. It was Padma—or he supposed it was Padma, it could just as easily have been her sister. There was that older Slytherin girl helping them, reading off a card and Summoning little colored spice jars from a nearby rack. They were leaning over steaming pots, the cooktop littered with spices and oil and dried fruit. The kitchen smelled pungent and savory, thick and meaty for so early in the morning: garlic, onions, cinnamon, and something sharp he couldn't identify.

"Oh my God, this is _not_ how it looks at home," Padma or maybe not-Padma said frantically.

"I told you we should stick with _shemai_," the older girl interjected. "The milk is going to boil, Parvati—"

Not-Padma reached over to dump a handful of noodles into a bubbling pot. She saw him, and the breath caught in his throat. "Hey, what are _you_ doing here?" Now all three of them were staring at him, while pots clattered and house-elves yelped behind them and the pot steamed, unheeded.

"Good morning?" he said. It came out in a squeak. He must look a sight, standing in the doorway of the kitchen at eight in the morning holding a little Hebrew book. Padma and not-Padma stared at him a moment longer before the older girl yelped that the meat was getting burnt and they had to pay attention or they'd be eating sandwiches for the holiday—

The holiday? The next morning he left the dormitory with Michael on their way to breakfast and saw the two girls draped in bright spangled wraps, hair unbraided and clearly in no hurry to get to class. They kept their eyes down and perched uneasily at the edge of their chairs, passing a small book back and forth and reading in low, staccato tones. He didn't know which was Padma, but he smiled vaguely in their direction. He did not see them in class all week.

Days later, he made Friday night _kiddush_ in the common room between a Gobstones game and a fierce debate on the consciousness of moving paintings. No one, he marveled, batted an eyelash. It was a familiar sight already; the cup didn't even spill as he made _hagafen_, and Michael plunked down next to him as he drank. "Don't you get bored while we're all at supper?"

"I've got enough to do. Look." He opened his _Chumash_, unfolded his father's list of _Rashi_s, and put a finger on _pasuk alef_, but before he could get further than, "_Bereishis bara_," Michael's eyes lit on the translation, on the left side of the page. "Hey! 'In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth'! I know that one. But what's all this?" He ran his hand down the right side of the page.

"It's the Hebrew. It says the same thing." Yehuda dropped his voice to a murmur, but it was too late. Terry Boot's ears had perked up at the words _in the beginning_. "You've got a Bible, Goldstein?" he said eagerly.

"No, it's _A History of Magic_, but for some reason the first sentence is 'In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth,'" Michael said impatiently. "Shove off, Boot."

"There's no need to be _rude_," Terry said. "It's my Bible, too—"

Yehuda shut the Chumash, avoiding Terry's gaze. He stood up and walked away, to the other end of the common room, the Chumash tucked protectively under his arm. He waited until Terry had gone up to the dormitory before he opened the Chumash and list of Rashis, but by then it was so late he only got through two before he was yawning too often to make it worthwhile.

October wore on. Wind whistled outside the dormitory windows, you couldn't go outside without a coat, and once they saw a few snow flurries during Herbology. Yehuda had always been aware of some _goyish_ holiday between Sukkos and Chanukah, with the vague impression that it celebrated candy corn, cemeteries, and the color orange, but here bats fluttered in black clouds high above the Great Hall, and every corner in the building had a white cobweb strung ceiling to wall. That, coupled with Terry's excited natterings about Hogsmeade and St. Joan's, conspired to make Yehuda suddenly feel the weight of his yarmulke on his head. Nobody looked at him differently, but he was Jewish, and nobody else was.

In their empty dormitory, he'd _davened Shacharis_ as usual while the others went to breakfast. He held his breath until he was sure they were all gone, particularly Terry. Then he made _kiddush_, ate potato stew and salmon, and stretched his legs across the bed and opened his _Chumash_ on top.

_Vayehi chayei Sara meah shana, v'esrim shana, v'sheva shanim_, he hummed to himself, and the life of Sara was one hundred years, and twenty years, and seven years…He moved his finger down to the small print, Rashi's commentary. _Therefore it says "years" by each_…_klal_? He'd have to ask the rabbi how to translate that one…_to tell you that each can be interpreted to itself. At age one hundred she was like a twenty-year-old in terms of sins, as a twenty-year-old does not sin because she is not the age of liability, so she at one hundred did not sin. And at age twenty she was like a seven-year-old in beauty. _He heard feet pounding hurriedly up the stairs, then the door flung open and Terry burst in. The _Chumash_ snapped shut.

"What are you doing here?"

Terry moved hurriedly, pulling on his coat. "I'm not supposed to discuss it with anyone, but I suppose it's all right to tell you because—you know—anyway, I'm going to Hogsmeade with the third-years, to go to Mass at the chapel there." He beamed with this pronouncement. Yehuda's brow furrowed. Was he going to _invite_ him or something?

"Why do you keep telling me that?" he asked.

Terry stiffened, the smile wiped from his face. "Because you also got to leave for your worship. I thought you'd—"

"Why would I care about your Christian things?" he blurted. He felt a tiny stab at Terry's hurt face, and looked back at his Chumash. _Shnei chayei Sara_—the years of the life of Sara. The dormitory was very quiet. _Kulan shavin l'tova—_all of them equally good. The door slammed shut. He sighed, and tried to concentrate. He made it all the way to _pasuk yud_—Efron had just been appointed only that day, Hashem had arranged it so that Avraham would deal with an equal, and you saw that from the missing _vav_—when Michael came upstairs, with a glass of orange juice in one hand and a muffin in the other.

"They've gone to Hogsmeade," he announced breathlessly, face flushed pink with cold. "Third years and up, all lined up outside after breakfast, and carriages that pulled themselves took them away."

Yehuda smiled. "You mean…cars?"

"No, of course not! I know what a car is, Yehuda! I said carriages that pull themselves." He caught his breath. "Terry went with them. I saw him with that Hufflepuff boy."

He tried not to care. So what if Terry went to—what was it called? Mass. It didn't matter to _him_.

* * *

Terry went to Mass, and came back Christianer than ever. He would sit in the common room and whisper under his breath while feeling his way along a beaded necklace, the sight of which so disturbed Yehuda that he began davening on the grass outside, shivering in the frosty sunrise.

At Herbology, Professor Sprout collected their Bouncing Bulbs in a metal container. He heard the pods battering against the lid as she announced that she would see them next week Monday. He frowned, confused, and nudged a blond Slytherin boy with the unlikely name of Draco. "Why is there no class on Thursday?" he whispered.

"It's _Halloween_," Draco smirked, in a tone that strongly suggested Yehuda should have known that already.

And sure enough, it was. In the Hall, a thousand live bats fluttered from the walls and ceiling while a thousand more swooped over the tables in low black clouds. There were pumpkins carved with terrifying gap-toothed smiles that glowed and lit up the room. The feast appeared suddenly on the golden plates, as it had at the start-of-term banquet. A steaming bowl of vegetable soup popped into existence on Yehuda's plate, followed by a mound of rice. Michael piled his plate high with chocolate-dipped sugar cones and brightly-colored sweets, as did most of the others.

"You ought to try these, Yehuda," Morag said, her mouth full of jellybeans.

"I'm all right," Yehuda said. He blew on his vegetable soup before taking a careful sip. He told himself he was lucky to have hot food at all, he didn't need candy. It would probably rot his teeth anyway.

Morag slapped her forehead. "Oh, I forgot, it's not k—"

She was interrupted by a bloodcurdling shriek. Yehuda dropped his fork and turned. He wasn't the only one. Half the table was out of their seats and Hilliard drew his wand as Professor Quirrell bolted down the aisle between tables screaming screaming screaming—terror shot through him, teachers _shouldn't_ scream—"TROLL! In the dungeon! T-T-TROLL IN THE D-D-D-DUNGEON!"

He stopped, staggering at the head table. Dumbledore half-rose, McGonagall looked alarmed. "Thought you ought to know," Quirrell gasped, and collapsed.

No one breathed.

A high-pitched scream emanated from somewhere, but it didn't matter where because soon people were yelling and shrieking and crying all over. Yehuda's head whipped desperately from side to side. A goblet overturned, pumpkin juice spilled across the table. Shoulders jostled him, he couldn't see Michael, a mass of students stampeding toward the door. What was going on—

"SILENCE!"

He froze, and heads turned. Dumbledore stood, palms out, and the force of his gaze was enough to stop a room in its tracks. "Thank you. Everyone will, please, not panic. Prefects, lead your houses back to the dormitories. Teachers will follow me to the dungeons."

"Hufflepuff, this way!" a boy yelled.

"Stay together!" Hilliard barked. "Come on, Ravenclaws. Follow me!"

He tugged Hilliard's sleeve. "What's going on?"

"Troll in the dungeons," Hilliard said brusquely over his shoulder. "They're dangerous. Ravenclaw, this way!" Yehuda was buffeted by pushing black robes and blue-and-bronze school ties as the crowd pushed up the staircase. It thinned a little at the top as the Gryffindor prefect shouted half the students down the corridor. "A first-year's missing," someone whispered, and the words rippled through the moving throng. "Hermione Granger's missing." Yehuda struggled to keep up as they climbed up and up and up the staircase, moving faster and faster. Someone pressed against him and he saw Michael, his face white and pinched, scared.

"What's a troll, Michael?" he asked, as they reached the landing and the pleasant Ravenclaw voice asked what a Patronus was made of.

"Happiness," Hilliard said tensely. "Inside, everyone, let's go—"

"It's big and mean," Michael said. "One of my neighbor's cousins met one in the mountains, at least they think. All they found of him was his boots."

Yehuda shivered. There was a wild animal on the loose, and a girl was missing. What if she died? He didn't even know what she looked like. _Shir lama'alos_, he whispered,_ esa einai el heharim, me'ayin yavo ezri_… He made a mental note to ask the rabbi. Could you say Tehillim for a _goy_? The minutes ticked by. A tiny sob escaped Mandy's lips and Morag slung an arm over her shoulder. They huddled in trembling silence as the fire crackled, filling the room with a warmth nobody felt.

Hilliard burst into the common room. "It's over!" he announced. "They've got it."

"And Hermione?" Padma asked anxiously. "Did they find her?"

He wrinkled his nose. "She went after the troll, apparently. In case any of you lot are also mad enough to think you could tackle a full-grown mountain troll, let me just tell you right now that you can't. Oh, she's all right," he added, at Padma's wide-eyed stare. "Harry Potter and the youngest Weasley got her out of there. McGonagall and Snape are moving it out."

* * *

_Dear Mummy and Tatty,_ he wrote, and stopped.

He ought to tell his parents that there had been a dangerous—animal?—that the school was dangerous. They would pull him out before you could say _pikuach nefesh_. He could go home and back to Torah Temima—Yesodey, now. He was sure Professor McGonagall wouldn't object if they said danger—well, she would, but she wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

But they had caught the troll. It had done no harm.

His wrist was starting to hurt, poised midair above the parchment. _How are you?_ he added. _I am fine._

He couldn't just _lie_ to his parents. He never had. They'd want to know. It could happen again. They should take him home. He was supposed to _want_ to go home.

But at home, he would be Goldstein who set Meyerson's hair on fire, Yehuda oy-what-are-we-going-to-do-with-you. He stroked his wand, remembering how it felt to cast _Lumos_, to feel the strange wild power rush from somewhere deep inside him, forced into the narrow channel to burst into light. He was supposed to learn to control it, wasn't he? He couldn't do _that_ at home.

He bit his lip.

_I'm learning a lot, _he wrote, _and Rabbi Zeller is teaching me how to keep the kitchen kosher. The food is good._

He felt uglier and uglier as he wrote, his stomach sick as he signed the letter and folded it over to seal. It was a lie, and he was a liar, if only by omission.

* * *

**Glossary**

_P'sak. _Halachic ruling.

_Amidah. _The central nineteen-blessing prayer.

_Yom Tov_. Holiday.

_Bishul akum_. Food cooked by a non-Jew.

_Hashem_, literally "the Name." God.

_Shehakol_. Blessing on foods that are not grain, fruit, or vegetable.

_Chanukah_. You oughta know this one.

_Kosher_. Acceptable under Jewish dietary laws.

_K'sav Ashuris_, literally "Assyrian script." Hebrew ritual handwriting font.

_Chillul Hashem_. Profaning God's name through one's actions.

_Kiddush Hashem_. Making holy God's name through one's actions.

_Yiddishkeit_. Jewishness.

_Kippah_. Skullcap.

_Daven_. Pray.

_Mashgiach_. Supervisor of kosher food production.

_Hallel_. Psalms 113 to 118, recited in praise and thanksgiving on Jewish holidays.

_Mussaf Rosh Chodesh_. Added prayer for the first of the new Jewish month.

_Shemai_. A traditional Indian dish.

_Kiddush_. Shabbos blessing over wine.

_Chumash_. Five Books of Moses.

_Rashi_. Medieval commentary on the Torah and centerpiece of Jewish study.

_Pasuk alef_. Verse one.

_Bereishis bara_. In the beginning [God] created.

_Goyish_. Non-Jewish.

_Yarmulke_. Skullcap.

_Shacharis_. Morning prayers.

_Klal. _Concept.

_Pasuk yud_. Verse ten.

_Vav_. The Hebrew letter U/V/W.

_Shir lama'alos, esa einai el heharim, me'ayin yavo ezri_. A song of ascents; I raise my eyes to the mountains, from where will my help come? (Psalm 121:1)

_Tehillim_. Psalms.

_Goy_. Non-Jew.

_Pikuach nefesh_. Life-threatening danger.

* * *

**Note:** "He winced. He hadn't even thought about grape juice" applies to your author as well. Good catch.

**Another note: **Sincere apologies for the delay.


	10. Chapter 10

**JKR owns HP**

* * *

_Our rabbis taught the rule of Chanukah: On the first day one candle is lit, and after that they are gradually increased—because we ascend in holiness, but do not subtract (Shabbos 21b)_

* * *

When Yehuda woke up Shabbos morning, only Stephen was still in bed. He _davened Shacharis_ and went down to fetch breakfast. There seemed to be great excitement in the Hall: a group of Slytherins were dressed identically in green and silver football player outfits, and holding big broomsticks. Squinting across the room, he saw a similarly-dressed set of Gryffindors in red and gold, only some were girls. As he ventured down the Ravenclaw table, he overheard snatches of conversation.

"They've got Harry Potter as their Seeker—you know they say his father was Gryffindor Seeker too—"

"But he's a first-year!" Cho objected. "_I _wanted to try out in first year, and you wouldn't let _me_."

"Yeah, well, you're not Harry Potter, are you?" Davies shrugged, taking another bite.

He retrieved fruit and grape juice and headed back up to finish davening, and was in the middle of _Mussaf_ when he heard the door open. By the light footfalls, he knew it was Michael, and by the creak of the mattress and patient breathing he understood that Michael was going to wait for him to finish.

He flicked his eyes to the page, trying to concentrate, trying to _daven_ just as he would if he were not being watched, no faster and no slower, but there was no use. He bent forward for _Modim_, reading down the English side in an attempt to stay focused. _We will give thanks to You and recount Your praise, evening, morning and noon, for our lives which are committed into Your hand, for our souls which are entrusted to You, for Your miracles which are with us daily, and for Your continual wonders and beneficences…_He wondered what a beneficence was as he took three steps back and bowed—left, right, forward—and turned.

"Morning."

"Morning!" Michael was pulling on his coat. "Are you coming to the game?"

"That they play with broomsticks?" He pressed a kiss to the _siddur_'s cover, considering this. "Where is it?"

"On the pitch." Michael looked at him dubiously. "You don't know _anything_ about Quidditch, do you?"

He shrugged. "Let me finish here, and I'll come, all right?" He said _Aleinu_ and _Pitum Ketores _and _Ein Kelokeinu_ while Michael tapped his foot and waited.

They went downstairs, joining the trickle of students walking down the doorstep into the sunshine. He checked that his pockets were empty before stepping out onto the grass. There were still snowdrifts, though a path had been shoveled through down the hill, past the training ground. You weren't supposed to _play_ football on Shabbos—Quidditch was like football, wasn't it?—but you could _watch_, couldn't you? He'd have to ask.

They stepped up through the rows toward the blue-and-bronze flags that fluttered overhead. A fluttering banner flashed the words _Potter for President!_ behind them. Yehuda sat down on the bleachers beside Michael.

"Mount your brooms, please." Madam Hooch's voice echoed across the stadium, and the whistle blew and fifteen brooms, glittering green and red uniforms, rose off the ground, high into the air. Madam Hooch flung open a box, and several balls shot up toward the players, who began swooping in and out in earnest chase. The voice of a young announcer rang out. "And the Quaffle is taken immediately by Angelina Johnson of Gryffindor—what an excellent Chaser that girl is, and rather attractive, too—"

Yehuda blushed, looking at his feet.

"JORDAN!" Professor McGonagall yelled.

"Sorry, Professor," said whoever was doing the announcements—Jordan, presumably, not sounding sorry in the least. "Aaaaand she's really belting along up there, a neat pass to Alicia Spinnet, good find of Oliver Wood's, last year only a reserve—back to Johnson—no, the Slytherins have taken the Quaffle, Slytherin Captain Marcus Flint gains the Quaffle and off he goes—Flint flying like an eagle up there, he's going to—no, stopped by an excellent move by Gryffindor Keeper Wood."

Yehuda's eyes darted back and forth in confusion, unable to follow the rapid flight of so many balls. The uniforms sped by in such a blur he could barely make out the names printed on the back—FLINT, BELL—and there was a WEASLEY—

"And the Gryffindors take the Quaffle—that's Chaser Katie Bell of Gryffindor there, nice dive around Flint, off up the field and—ouch, that must hurt, hit in the back of the head by a Bludger—Quaffle taken by Slytherin. Adrian Pucey speeding off toward the goal posts, but he's blocked by a second Bludger sent his way by Fred-or-George Weasley, sorry, can't tell which—nice play by the Gryffindor Beater, anyway. Johnson back in possession of the Quaffle, a clear field ahead and off she goes—dodges a speeding Bludger—goal posts ahead—come on now, Angelina—Keeper Bletchley dives—misses—GRYFFINDORS SCORE!"

"Yes!" Michael yelled. He punched the air. In the next set of bleachers, the Slytherin house let out a unanimous groan. Squinting, Yehuda made out POTTER, doing a series of extravagant loop-the-loops far above the game. He wondered if that was part of the rules. There was Weasley aga—no, it was a different one, whacking a big flying cannonball away from Potter toward the Slytherin captain.

"Slytherin in possession!" Jordan announced, "Chaser Pucey ducks two Bludgers, two Weasleys, and Chaser Bell, and speeds toward the—wait a moment—was that the Snitch?"

Beside him, Michael gasped. "Get it, Potter!" he breathed. PUCEY dropped the red ball, while HIGGS nosedived toward the ground, Potter alongside him, so fast Yehuda was sure they would crash. The other players had stopped buzzing around to hover in midair, watching them. He saw Flint streak toward them, straight toward Potter, and Potter had to yank his broom to the side, almost falling off.

"FOUL!" Michael and Stephen were on their feet, shouting, fists raised. A roar of rage echoed from the red-and-gold Gryffindors stands. Madam Hooch flew forward and Yehuda saw her yelling at Flint. The commentator was breathing hard. "So, after that obvious and disgusting bit of cheating—"

"Jordan!"

"I mean, after that open and revolting foul—"

"JORDAN! I'm warning you—"

"All right, all right!" Jordan said. "Flint nearly kills the Gryffindor Seeker, which could happen to anyone, I'm sure, so penalty to Gryffindor. Spinner puts it away, no trouble, and we continue play, Gryffindor still in possession."

Yehuda sat back, his eyes glazing as he watched the red robes chase the green toward the great hoops at either end of the field. He watched the sun uneasily, thinking of his _siddur_ back in the dormitory, and _mincha_. What if it got late? Were you allowed to leave the game in the middle? Potter darted across his field of vision, his broom twitching spasmodically. Yehuda squinted. Was he _leaving_? He looked like he was flying away from the game.

"Michael?" Yehuda nudged him. "Is that—supposed to be happening?"

"Slytherin in possession—Flint with the Quaffle, passes Spinnet, passes Bell, hit in the face by a Bludger, hope it broke his nose—only joking, Professor—Slytherins score—"

"What's going on?" Stephen asked. Yehuda held his yarmulke on as he tilted his head back to stare. Michael was pointing, Hilliard was yelling, people were looking at each other in confusion. Potter had fallen off his broom and was swinging by one hand. The two WEASLEYs circled underneath him, but every time they approached, the broom jumped, bearing Potter even further from the game. Potter made a wild grab for the broom with his other hand and missed, dangling like a leaf in autumn two hundred feet above the pitch.

"What's he _doing_?" Yehuda whispered. In the terrified silence, his voice came out too loud.

"I don't know," Michael whispered back. His face was white.

But just as people were starting to stand up, crying out and pointing at Potter, just as the teachers' box across the stands began to dissolve into alarm and disorder, Potter clambered back onto his suddenly docile broom. Yehuda's knuckles were white on the guardrail. Potter sped toward the ground looking immensely relieved, as Yehuda would have done after such an experience, but then two feet from the ground, he clapped a hand to his mouth as though he was about to be sick, fell off his broom, tumbled to the grass, spat into his hand, and waved something gold above his head, yelling his head off.

Michael roared with nervous laughter. "He's got the Snitch! Only Harry Potter could pull something like that!"

"Potter catches the Snitch—or maybe swallows it, but who cares?" Jordan bellowed above the confused murmurs in the stands. "One hundred fifty points to the Gryffindor Seeker and Gryffindor wins—one hundred and seventy points to sixty!"

"Sixty?" Michael said blankly to Stephen. "They only scored one goal."

"Is the game over?" Yehuda asked.

Michael looked distracted. "What? Oh—yes, when they catch the Snitch you get a hundred fifty points and the game's over, but that was bloody _odd_, Potter's broom, wouldn't you say? Almost like he was being jinxed. But who'd want to jinx the Boy Who Lived?"

_The who?_ he almost asked, but decided he'd asked enough questions for the day. If the Boy Who Lived was another name for Harry Potter, it was bound to be in a book or two, just like the boy himself.

* * *

A beneficence was a noun derivative of beneficent, he discovered, the quality or state of being beneficent. He put the dictionary back on the shelf, almost kissed his fingers out of force of habit, and went to class.

It snowed again in the middle of Charms. Yehuda, waiting for Michael to finish getting their lock to seal itself so he could practice his own _Alohomora_, was suddenly distracted by Morag dropping her wand, running to the window, and yelling, "It's snowing!"

In an instant, the class had scrambled to the windows to press eleven-year-old faces to the glass as Flitwick chuckled behind them. Yehuda watched the snow swirl down the castle. Winter—he wondered when Chanukah was. Rosh Chodesh had been three weeks ago, _parshas_…_Chayei Sara_? No, _Toldos_. He moved down the calender rows in his head. Yes, _chaf-hey Kislev_. Where was he going to get a _menorah_?

"Back to your seats, please," Flitwick said patiently. They had locks to charm.

The next morning, Yehuda came down to the kitchen to watch the house-elves put up his bean soup in a separate pot, away from the meat and chicken. He took a deep breath. "Buckley—"

"Yes, master Goldstein."

"Do you have a…" He fell silent. A candleholder? The old story sprang to his mind, of prisoners digging out the insides of potatoes to light threaded wicks in machine grease, and he imagined himself lining hollowed potato halves on the nightstand and explaining that it was to remember a war and a jar of olive oil that lasted eight days, and he fought the insane urge to laugh. The house-elf stood patiently, waiting.

"I need a—candelabra," he said finally. He tried to sketch it with his fingers in the air. "A special kind. It has to have eight candles in a straight line, with none of them higher than the others…"

Buckley's eyes flickered with recognition. "A _menorah_," he said.

Yehuda blinked.

"We is having one here for a long time," the house-elf said, "but Buckley does not know where it is now—"

"The old things is being under the vegetable cutting table!" Remmy called.

Yehuda watched, wide-eyed, as the house-elf buried his arm in the cabinet to the shoulder. Mold-speckled pots, a long-handled bread knife, and something that looked suspiciously like a _negel vasser _cup clattered against the stone. A candlestick bounced to the floor and Buckley pulled out a small metal object—rusted, stained with colorful wax spots, but a _menorah_! Yehuda's heart leapt. He left the kitchen and headed back upstairs, armed with the _menorah_ and a handful of candles magically shrunk to fit.

He ought to light it in the common room, for _pirsumei nisa_, but he was too embarrassed—and anyway they were _goyim_, so it didn't count, did it? He reached for his notebook and jotted down the fourth question of the week: _Does pirsumei nisa include goyim_? He wrote _goyim _in Hebrew letters in case Terry decided to go through his things—it was the sort of thing he would do.

In the meantime, he stood the battered tin thing on the windowsill. It was a bit dented, and he had to knock it against the stone a few times before it would stay upright. He wedged the candle in place, all the way on the right, and tucked the _shamash_ all the way to the left before realizing that he'd need to pull it out to light.

But there was time.

The sun rose, class began and ended, meals were served and Terry studiously avoided. He kept a careful eye on the clock as the sun set in pink and purple glory beyond the common room windows. At _tzeis_, he casually excused himself and went upstairs, where his _menorah_ awaited. He propped his _siddur_ open and checked the time once more.

"_Incendio_," he said, swishing the wand in-and-out like the shape of a flame. Nothing happened. "_Incendio!_" He wasn't _that _good yet. Resignedly, he struck a match and lit the _shamash_. "_Baruch Atah Hashem Elokeinu, melech haolam, asher kideshanu b'mitzvosav v'tzivanu lehadlik ner shel Chanukah_."

Nobody answered _amen_, but that was all right.

"_Baruch Atah Hashem Elokeinu, melech haolam, she'asa nissim la'avoseinu—_" He looked down at the English translation, and suppressed a smile— "_bayamim haheim, bazman hazeh_."

He made _Shehechiyanu_ and lit the candle and replaced the _shamash_, and gazed at the flames, glowing golden against the glass. He waited for waves of homesickness to wash over him, but none did. The candles were just as beautiful here, or maybe he was just used to it already. He turned the page and sang under his breath.

"_Maoz tzur yeshuasi, lecha na'eh leshabe-e-eyach…tikon beis tefilasi, v'sham todah nizabe-e-eyach_…"

He heard footsteps on the dormitory stairs and dropped his voice, mouthing the next stanza. _Ub'yado hagedolah hotzi es hasegulah…_

"—lost Gryffindor a hundred fifty points—oh! Happy Hanukkah, Goldstein!"

"Hanukkah?" said Terry with interest. "But Christmas isn't for three weeks!"

He jerked at the sound of the word, not knowing what to say to that. It certainly wasn't _his_ fault the—thing with the sparkly pine trees—didn't line up with Chanukah. "Thanks," he said finally to Stephen, ignoring Terry.

When he touched his wand to his plate at dinner, he was flabbergasted to see potato _latkes_ and jelly doughnuts wink back at him. They weren't as good as Mummy's, but they were delicious. Yom Kippur they'd never heard of, _arba minim _was—from another planet, and even his Shabbos morning _kiddush_ still attracted attention, but Chanukah, at home just a day off and maybe going to Bubby for dinner, that _everyone_ seemed to know about.

The next indicator came at Transfiguration class, at attendance. After calling Stephen Cornfoot and Kevin Entwhistle, Professor McGonagall looked up. "Happy Hanukkah, Mr. Goldstein," she said, with a faint almost-smile. "Su Li. Morag MacDougal. Padma Patil. Lisa Turpin." He wondered how she knew.

A school owl arrived at breakfast the next day, bearing chocolate coins and two letters: one from Rabbi Zeller, one from his parents. He read them as he walked, bumping into walls and people on his way back upstairs.

Dear Yehuda, they wrote. His mother and father missed him, hoped he was keeping up with his Gemara and _Kitzur_. His father had circled a couple of wrong answers on his worksheet and made notes on the side; he'd look at those later. Adina had won the spelling bee, Eliyohu had a new tooth, they all professed to miss him, nothing new there. He opened Rabbi Zeller's letter, popping a chocolate coin into his mouth.

_A freilichen Chanukah, Yehuda! I hope you're doing well._

_I came across this d'var Torah, and I thought of you: Where do we find Chanukah mentioned in the Torah? By the Mishkan, which was officially finished on Chanukah but not dedicated until later. When Hashem tells Bnai Yisrael to build it, the pasuk says "Build me a Mishkan and I will dwell b'socham—inside them."_

_Inside them? What does this mean? That there's a little Mishkan inside every Jew. Even if there's no Bais Hamikdash because of the Yevanim, we take our inside-Mishkan everywhere we go. It's that Mishkan you make a chanukas habayis for. We're always serving Hashem, even if there's no shul around._

_Please find my answers to your last letter's questions on the attached page. Remember to look up the sources!_

He had reached the Ravenclaw common room as he read, and now he raised the knocker and let it down, still smiling.

"What creature carries its home with it wherever it goes?" the door asked.

"Me," Yehuda answered. His heart was full.

* * *

On the last night of Chanukah, he lit all eight candles and sang Maoz Tzur, and pored over his Gemara sheets.

If you were banging with a hammer that sparked and set things on fire, you could be _chayav_, or if your camel had flax that went into someone's store and caught fire and burned down the building, you had to pay. But if the storeowner had left his candle outside, it was his problem, unless it was a Chanukah candle.

He wondered if his father had set it up on purpose so that he would learn the Chanukah _daf_ on Chanukah.

After a half-hour, he went downstairs with his essay and inkwell and sat at a table in the common room with Michael and Megan, comparing the uses of dragon's blood. Chatter rose behind themas a prefect circulated, talking quietly to the groups scattered around the room. Megan laughed as she told them dragon blood made good oven cleaner. Yehuda reciprocated by showing her that one of the footnotes said it was a cure for veruca, though neither of them knew what that was.

"Anyway Dumbledore discovered all of them," Michael said with finality, just as the prefect reached their table.

"Goldstein, Corner, Jones—any of you going home?" Penelope held out a clipboard. "Sign if you're staying—"

"We can go _home_?" Yehuda gasped. The quill fell from his hand. Ink sprayed across the parchment, but he stared at Penelope in numb delight. "We get to go _home_?"

"Of course." She looked puzzled. "If none of you are planning on staying, I'll just—"

"No, we're all going home, thanks," Michael said. "Christmas holiday," he explained quietly to Yehuda, who winced at the word. "There's no lessons for a week, and a train back to London."

"And it leaves on—er—the twenty-fifth?" He grinned, already counting down the days. He'd see his family—Danziger—the rabbi, too! He could go to _shul_, he could be home for Shabbos—

The twenty-third, they told him. He wondered if there was an _erev _X-mas they needed to prepare for. In that week's letter to Rabbi Zeller, he drew a dashed line under his signature and added a note, not long enough to be a letter of its own. _Dear_ _Tatty and Mummy—we have winter holiday on 23 December, could you pick me up from King's Cross? A freilichen Chanukah. Love, Yehuda._

* * *

**Glossary**

_Chanukah_. Hanukkah.

_Shabbos_. Saturday, the Sabbath.

_Daven_. Pray.

_Shacharis_. Morning services.

_Mussaf_. Additional prayers for holidays.

_Modim_, literally "[We] thank." The eighteenth blessing of the _Amidah_.

_Aleinu_, _Pitum Ketores_, _Ein Kelokeinu_. Prayers at the conclusion of services.

_Siddur_. Prayer book.

_Mincha_. Afternoon services.

_Almost kissed his fingers_. A popular Jewish practice after touching a holy book.

_Rosh Chodesh_. The first of the Jewish month.

_Parshas_. Weekly Torah portion.

_Chaf-hey Kislev_. 25 Kislev, the first day of Chanukah.

_Menorah_. Candelabra.

_Negel vasser_. Ritual hand-washing.

_Pirsumei nisa_, literally "advertising the miracle." Displaying the _menorah_ in a public place.

_Goyim_, literally "nations." Non-Jews.

_Shamash_. Candle used to light the others.

_Tzeis_. Nightfall.

_Baruch Atah Hashem Elokeinu, melech haolam, asher kideshanu b'mitzvosav v'tzivanu lehadlik ner shel Chanukah_. Blessed are you, Lord our God, ruler of the world, who has sanctified us with his commandments and commanded us to light Chanukah candles.

_Baruch Atah Hashem Elokeinu, melech haolam, she'asa nissim la'avoseinu bayamim haheim, bazman hazeh_. Blessed are you, Lord our God, ruler of the world, who did miracles for our fathers, in those days, in this time.

_Shehechiyanu_. Blessing on a novel experience, such as the first night of a holiday.

_Maoz tzur yeshuasi, lecha na'eh leshabe'ach. Tikon beis tefilasi, v'sham todah nizabe'ach_. My stronghold and rock of salvation, it is pleasant to praise you. Establish my house of prayer, and there I will sacrifice in thanks. Chanukah song.

_Ub'yado hagedolah hotzi es hasegulah_. And with his great hand he brought out the treasured nation.

_Latkes_. Flapjacks.

_Arba minim_. Four species.

_Kiddush_. Blessing over wine.

_Bubby_. Grandma.

_Gemara_. The Talmud.

_Kitzur_, literally "shortened." Condensed religious text of Jewish law.

_A freilichen Chanukah_. Happy Hanukkah.

_D'var Torah_. Torah thought or interpretation.

_Mishkan. _The temporary portable Temple. (See Exodus 25 and onward.)

_Bnai Yisrael. _Jews.

_Bais Hamikdash_. The Holy Temple.

_Yevanim_. Syro-Greek Seleucid invaders of Israel, c. 2nd century BC.

_Chayav_. Legally responsible.

_Daf_. Page in the Talmud.

* * *

_We're back, witches._


	11. Chapter 11

**JKR owns HP**

* * *

_God, hear the voice of Yehuda, and bring him to his people (Deuteronomy 33:7)_

* * *

Walking into the Great Hall was a shock. The walls were draped with green leaves and red berries and wreaths of the sort you saw hanging in the _goyish_ neighborhoods, and there were huge pine trees in every corner of the room, towering over the tables and sparkling with ice and candles. He thought of the little tin _menorah_ he had stood on the windowsill, and felt a pang of jealousy.

When there were only two days left, he counted out ten white shirts and packed them carefully into his trunk. Pajamas. His _Kitzur_ and _Gemara_. "You're going home for Christmas, Goldstein?" Terry asked.

"For the winter break," he said, irritated. "I don't do…X-mas." He couldn't make the word come out of his mouth.

"But _everyone_ celebrates Christmas," Kevin said.

"He's _Jewish_, you muppet!"

"It's _Christ_mas," Terry said, with an air of great wisdom. "Like _Christ_ianity."

Distantly, he heard them begin to squabble over whether or not he did, in fact, celebrate Christmas, and if other people-that-weren't-Christians didn't either. Funny, how they could know so much and so little at the same time. He folded trousers and pairs of socks in silence.

"I've got to pack up too," Stephen remembered. Kevin wrestled with a trunk, while Michael shoveled T-shirts and jeans and Chocolate Frogs into a big rucksack. They were leaving Monday afternoon, right after Potions.

* * *

Monday morning, he could scarcely breathe. He ate his scrambled eggs and toast and walked with Michael to Charms, where Professor Flitwick announced that they would be practicing _Incendio_, hands-on this time, since they seemed to have trouble grasping it. Hands drew wands around the room.

"Not all at once!" Flitwick said reproachfully. "One eleven-year-old trying to summon fire is quite enough! We'll start with you, Boot—up you go."

One at a time, they came to the front of the room and jabbed the wand out, trying to replicate the diagram in the textbook. Terry, Mandy, and finally Michael managed to produce a yellowish glow from the tip of the wand that flared briefly before dying.

"No, no, no, no!" Flitwick reached across the desk to hold Michael's hand. "You've got to move i-i-in and ou-ou-out, not around. Fire, not light! Try again."

Yehuda flipped backward in the textbook to the Lumos diagram. Flitwick was right. The motions were very similar. It would be easy to confuse them. So engrossed was he that he almost didn't hear Flitwick clear his throat. "Goldstein?"

Michael nudged him. Startled, he shut the textbook and stood up. At the front of the room, he faced Flitwick, flung the wand out while tracing in-out with the tip, picturing fire, and said, "Incendio."

Nothing happened, as usual. How could you do so many things at once?

At lunchtime, he avoided the sparkly pine trees by running to the dormitory to finish packing. His heart beat fast. Just Potions, and then they would line up in the Great Hall for the boats to take them back to the train. As he joined the swarm of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws heading to the dungeon, he was so excited he couldn't concentrate.

Professor Snape did not seem to notice the excitement. "Settle down. Where's your cauldron, Macmillan, Finch-Fletchley? Two points from Hufflepuff. All of you, turn to Chapter Four and start preparing Forgetfulness Potion."

Yehuda fetched Lethe River water from the back while Michael turned up the flame, counting twenty seconds under his breath. Yehuda added the valerian and, squinting at the board, stirred three times clockwise. Snape moved between the desks, his shadow passing over Michael and Yehuda on his way to Morag. "Your theatrics are unnecessary, MacDougal—a simple pass over the surface of the cauldron will do."

While they waited for the potion to brew, Snape lectured disinterestedly on the properties of Lethe River water and memory loss as though nobody was bobbing up and down with their eyes on their watches rather than the professor. Forty minutes, Yehuda thought. Thirty-five minutes. He got out the mortar and pestle for stage two.

"Add two measures of Standard Ingredient," Snape said, "then four mistletoe berries."

A wave of giggles swept the classroom.

Yehuda looked around, confused. He dropped four mistletoe berries into the mortar while Michael snickered beside him. "What's so funny?"

Michael blushed. "_Mistletoe_. Er, how crushed is 'medium-fine powder'?"

He eyed Michael suspiciously. "Not powder, but not chunks. Like in Swelling Solutions."

They added two pinches, stirred counterclockwise five times—_ten _minutes—and by the time Yehuda got up to the wand-pass over the surface he was so eager to leave that he waved too close and made the solution bright orange instead of the coppery bronze in _Magical Drafts and Potions_.

Snape took five points from Ravenclaw for his error, then awarded five for Su Li's perfect execution. "Dismissed."

Yehuda was out the door before the echo died away.

* * *

Once again, he _davened mincha_ on the train, remembering with a little smile how he had leaned against his trunk to ask the rabbi which way to turn.

This time, the prayer was relaxed. He had time for every _bracha_, there were no eyes on his back. When he closed the _siddur_ and sat back down, Michael didn't even look up. The sun was beginning its descent. Michael propped open his own book, and the only sound heard in the compartment was content chewing and pages turning.

Michael shut the textbook just as a familiar rattling filled the corridor. The door opened and the grandmotherly woman with the cart looked in. "Anything off the—will it be fruit, then?" And she winked at Yehuda.

He laughed. "Thank you."

Michael requested Chocolate Frogs, and Yehuda ate his peach in tranquil silence, alternating between the words of the Kitzur and the brownish winter countryside speeding past. The sun was beginning a slow descent by the time Yehuda reached the end of the _se'if. _He had just turned the last page when there was laughter in the corridor, and the door opened once more.

"Oh, hello," said Terry.

Through the open door, Yehuda could see Cedric Diggory talking to some other fourth-years. "What do you want?"

Terry looked offended. "To say hello. What are you reading, there?"

Yehuda shut the Kitzur, holding it under the table. "Nothing. You've said hello, all right?"

Cedric Diggory leaned against the doorway. "There's no need to be rude, Goldstein."

Not him, too. He felt trapped, remembering Cedric Diggory inviting Terry to—what was it called—the Christian _davening_ thing. What did they want with him?

"Got any plans for holidays?" Terry asked, sliding himself in beside Michael. "My family and I are decorating our church, doing the play, and you?"

"Leave him alone, Boot," Michael said without looking up.

"He only wants to know what you're doing over holidays," Diggory said, with an air of great wisdom. "It's high time you three learned to get along."

Yehuda sat stiffly with his face turned toward the window, grassy hills tumbling by unseen. There was no holiday, there wasn't, he was only going home. He mustn't allow himself to think of it as X-mas break. "Nothing. I'm going home and seeing my family, all right?" It was almost dark out now. Were they back yet?

In answer to his unspoken question, the train slowed abruptly. Diggory pitched forward, grabbing Yehuda's seat for balance. He flinched.

The motion was not lost on Diggory. "Come on, Terry, we'd better get your things, we'll be there soon. Have a happy holiday, you two."

The door shut behind them.

"Well, that's got rid of them," Michael said. He stood up. "He's right. We _are _getting close."

Yehuda kissed the _Kitzur_ and put it in his schoolbag beside the _siddur_, and then they were pulling into Kings Cross, his heart beating fast, jumping down from the train, waving a hurried goodbye to Michael as the crowd buffeted them apart, squeezing up beside the barrier with the knowledge that behind it was home.

"We can't all go running through at the same time!" Hilliard said, pulling him back by the shoulder. He strained forward, desperate to see his family—all right, only his father, but still—he was back in London, he was _home_, he was ten steps away! The instant Dean Thomas disappeared through the barrier, he threw off the restraining hand and ran. There was a confused blur for a moment before he found himself in the train station, between platforms nine and ten, among the milling business suits. He ducked out of the way as Roger Davies walked through solid brick wall—amazingly, none of the Muggles so much as blinked—and turned, searching the crowd for a black hat and beard, for his father.

And there he was.

"Yehuda!"

"Tatty!"

He hugged his father, and they stood for a moment, just looking at each other.

"It's lovely to have you back," his father said finally. He took Yehuda's trolley. "Shall we go to the car?"

Yehuda trotted alongside him as they wended their way out of the station. He had so much to say, but he didn't know where to begin. In the parking lot, he shoved the trunk into the car and got in behind his father.

"How was your trip?"

"It was good," he said. "Not as long as the way there. I sat with my friend—oh, I made a friend, Tatty, his name's Michael and he's from Durham**—**and I bought some fruit from the cart and I reviewed the whole _se'if_. Can we learn together today?"

His father smiled. "We'll find some time."

He looked at the clock, and his forehead creased in confusion. King's Cross wasn't _that_ far from Golders Green. "Why aren't we going home?" he asked, as his father turned yet again, this time onto Devonshire instead of continuing straight toward their house.

"I told Sholom I was going to Heathrow," his father said. "That's half an hour away."

"Oh…" His heart sank. The lie, again. He quickly scrambled out of his black robes, un-knotted his Ravenclaw tie, scrunched the two into a ball and stuffed them into the trunk. In only a white shirt and black pants, he looked like any other Yesodey boy.

They traveled the final blocks in silence. His heart beat fast as he saw the familiar houses pass, and by the time they parked, he couldn't stand to wait. He threw open the door and ran up the steps, knocking on the door, whipped around to help his father with the trunk, turned back around to see his mother.

"Mummy!"

"Yehuda! Come in, come in." As he let go his trunk and looked around the front hall, familiar but unfamiliar, his mother folded her arms and rested them across her belly. With a shock, he realized that she was expecting a baby, and with a jolt of horror, that he had entirely forgotten that. Esti's mouth dropped. "Yehuda!"

"Yehuda's here!" Adina shrieked. She flung herself against him.

He looked at his father over her shoulder. "Didn't you tell them I was coming?"

Slowly, his father shook his head. He was not sure what he thought, but his mother broke the silence. "Let's have dinner, then!"

It was chicken stir-fry and rice, after months of vegetables. Brochie tantrumed that there were spots in the rice, Sholom propped open a _sefer_ on the table, and his father told both of them to stop it at once. The doorbell rang, and everyone ignored it. It was good to be back.

The doorbell rang again.

"Someone get the _door!_" Esti yelled.

He got up, smiling as he opened it, because it was like nothing had changed at all—"Good afternoon, Bubby!"

"Yehuda! What are you doing here? I thought you were in yeshiva in America."

"Holiday," he explained helplessly, looking toward the kitchen. "Mummy? Bubby's here—"

"Chaya?" Bubby called, advancing into the front hall. "Yehuda is _home_?"

His mother put a hand on his shoulder. "His yeshiva is on holiday. He just got in this morning."

"I didn't know they give _winter_ holiday in America," Bubby said disapprovingly. "When Meir was in school, he had a day off for Chanukah and that was it."

"I'm sure it's only a legal thing," his mother said reassuringly. "I'm on holiday, too, you know."

"But you work in a bank, you're not in yeshiva," Sholom muttered.

"Leave Yehuda alone," said his father. "He just got back, he's probably exhausted."

Yehuda faked a yawn, remembering he was supposed to have just flown in from America, and it was a different time there, wasn't it? He couldn't remember. They didn't teach geography at Hogwarts. Mummy served dinner and everyone sat down. Bubby did, too.

"Thought about names for the baby?" Bubby asked. "You know the Elter Zeide Yossel was _niftar_ four years ago, and he has no name yet. You could call him Yossi. Yosef is such a lovely name, it's such a pity Brocha Esther and Freidy both had girls. You'll think about it, won't you?"

"Well, we've been thinking—" Mummy began.

"In any case Eliyohu was from your side," Bubby said, "so now it's Meir's turn."

"Actually, it's no one's turn," Esti pointed out. "Sholom, Adina, and Eliyohu are from Mummy's side, and Yehuda, me, and Brochie are from Tatty's."

Bubby glared.

"Esti," Mummy said quietly. "Don't interrupt Bubby."

"I'm not _interrupting_!" Esti drew herself up to her full height. With her nostrils flared, she looked just like Professor McGonagall. "I'm just trying to be in the _conversation_! How do you expect me to ever tell you _anything _if every time I open my mouth someone tells me to be quiet?"

An awkward silence greeted this announcement. He wondered if Esti had always been so aggressive and he just didn't remember, but judging from Mummy's fidgeting and Sholom's embarrassed duck of the head, it was a recent development. They ate dinner and Tatty made forcedly cheerful conversation with Bubby. Sholom muttered that he was going to _ma'ariv_.

When they had _bentched_, he followed Tatty out to _shul_, and stopped short as he recognized the familiar stooped posture in the third row. Rabbi Zeller, humming over a _sefer_ as he waited for _davening_ to start. He walked quietly up the aisle and loitered nervously behind the rabbi, trying to decide if it was all right to tap him on the shoulder.

He didn't need to. The rabbi looked up, and his face broke into a broad grin. "Yehuda Goldstein!" Rabbi Zeller shook his hand and slapped him on the back, like a grownup. "_Shalom aleichem!_ What brings you around?"

"I've got a holiday," he explained for what felt like the thousandth time. "It's for winter—"

"_Nittel_ holiday?" The rabbi laughed, and Yehuda laughed too. "Lovely to have you back. We'll talk later," he said quickly, as the _ba'al tefila _began _Ma'ariv_.

Yehuda slipped into his seat beside Sholom and opened the _siddur_. The murmur of fifty people's quiet prayer rippled through the _shul_. "_Baruch…atah…Hashem…oheiv amo…Yisrael…_" He lifted his right hand and covered his eyes, and said it as loud as he dared, so that his vocal cords could hear it—so it was real. "_Shema Yisrael_," he said—not a whisper, not a mumbled hidden prayer, but a declaration aloud—"_Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem echad_."

He was the first to finish _Shemone Esrei_. This perturbed him. Beside him, Sholom looked assiduously into the _siddur_, his eyebrows furrowed together and his mouth moving slowly, every syllable distinct. He davened so slowly. A twinge of guilt poked at Yehuda—when had his own davening gotten so quick? When he was embarrassed of it? When he had to run to class?

Even when he was finally home, he could not escape his differentness. He walked home silently and and fell asleep with his trunk standing guard over him, reminding him that he was on holiday, that he was only a guest here.

* * *

The week was boring. Friday morning, Esti, Sholom, Adina, and Brochie were at school, his father was at the _kollel_, and Eliyohu was at the babysitter. His mother sat at the kitchen table, sipping a coffee and paging through a stack of papers from the bank.

"I thought you were on holiday," he said.

"I am. But I don't want to fall behind over maternity leave. And I thought I'd relax." She smiled wryly. "But I'm having my coffee at nine instead of six, and Shabbos is already made, so I suppose it's a holiday."

He ate breakfast beside his mother in companionable silence. There were biscuits and bagels and butter (for everyone, not just him).

The minutes felt like hours. He sat cross-legged with the old family album opened on his lap: Mummy holding newborn Adina,Savta's wedding to Saba Reuven, school pictures of a nervous gap-toothed him and a grave Sholom.

When he got to the end, he put his coat on and dragged his bicycle out from under the canvas out back. It took him a few minutes to find his balance, but he rode all the way to Yesodey and back.

He went to his and Sholom and Eliyohu's room and practiced his _safrus_ a little. His wand was in the overnight bag under his bed, but he didn't dare take it out. Professor Flitwick had warned them: now that he was older, able to control the magic better, he wasn't allowed to do magic out of school, especially in front of—what were they called again, his family—Muggles. Do it enough times, Professor Flitwick said, and you could be expelled. No, the wand would stay where it was. He bit his lip and carefully inked a crown above a _zayin_.

When he had finished the entire _alef-beis _twice, he looked over his homework, but it felt so utterly ridiculous to be working on his Hogwarts things at home. He wandered downstairs again. His mother was on the phone, tapping a pen against a spreadsheet. She put it on hold and smiled at him distractedly. "Hi, Yehuda. You can get a biscuit, but I'm working in here. Try to stay out of the kitchen, all right?"

"But it's boring here. What can I _do_?"

"I don't know, I…" She trailed off.

"Mummy?"

His mother pushed her snood back. She looked very tired. "Why don't you go learn?"

Five minutes later, he was pulling his coat around him, his breath puffing in the air as he skipped over piles of grey slushy snow and pulled open the door. The _shul_ was empty, and his shoes squeaked against the floor as he walked. Two middle-aged men were learning in the back, murmuring voices. They didn't turn around when he came in. He tipped back his head to look at the shelves of _sefarim_.

"Goldstein? Is that you?"

He turned around to see Abulafia standing in the doorway, holding a Gemara and a spiral-bound notebook. "Hello," he said awkwardly. "Don't you have school?"

"I'm in Torat Emet, not Yesodey," Abulafia shrugged. "We get a winter holiday. And you?"

"I'm on holiday too," he said.

"So they give winter holiday in America? Huh. I didn't know that. But what do I know about America." Abulafia squinted up at the clock. "Have you seen Snapir while you were here? We were supposed to meet for a _chavruta_ at two."

"No, sorry."

Abulafia pulled out a chair and opened his Gemara, while Yehuda returned to scanning the shelves. "_Amar Ravina m'shmei d'Rava, shma mina mid'Rebbi Yehuda, ner Chanuka mitzvah lehanicha b'toch asara_," he chanted. "Because if you say that Chanukah candles can be lit over ten _tefachim_, why would Rabbi Yehuda say that for Chanukah candles you are _patur_?"

Chanukah candles_—_he had just been learning that, in the Ravenclaw dorm. Yehuda looked over his shoulder. Abulafia looked small and lonely at a table meant for grownup _chavrusa_s. "Hey," he said. "If Snapir doesn't come, I can learn with you. I'm up to _samach-beis_ too."

"Would you?" Abulafia smiled gratefully. "We're supposed to review it over the holidays because we're skipping the next _perek_. The _rebbi_ hinted at a test."

He stood on tiptoe to pull a _Bava Kama_ off the shelf, feeling for the first time a pang of jealousy. He had no _rebbi_, his father could not assign tests.

He picked up where Abulafia had left off. "_Leima lei, hava lei l'anucha l'maala migamal v'rachvo_—let him say, 'you should have put it too far up for the camel to reach!' _Ela, lav shma mina mitzvah lehanicha besoch asara_, this should prove you have to put under ten _tefachim_." He looked up. "Because if you _have_ to put it so low down, the camel guy can't blame you."

"_Amri lo_, but you could say," Abulafia continued. "_L'olam eima lach afilu l'maala mei'asara, mai amrat eibu'i lach l'anucha l'maala m'gamla v'rachva_. Even if you're allowed to put it over ten _tefachim_ high and the camel driver says 'you should have put it higher,' _keivan d'b'mitzvah ka asik, kulei hai lo atruchuha rabbanan_, maybe because he was busy with a _mitzvah_ so the _chachamim_ don't want to make trouble for him. Like making him have to pay the camel driver?"

Yehuda shook his head. "I think it just means he doesn't _have_ to put the candle so high. _Amar Rav Kahana, darash Rav Nosson bar Minyumei m'shmei d'Rebbe Tanchum, ner Chanukah shehenicha l'maala m'esrim amah_, if the Chanukah candles are over twenty _amos_ high—"

"_P'sula k'sukkah uk'mavui_," Abulafia finished. "Because if you put it twenty _amot _high, you don't have _pirsum haneis_ because nobody notices it all the way up there." He shut his Gemara and smiled at Yehuda. "Thanks. That was brilliant."

"It was," Yehuda agreed fervently. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a proper _chavrusa_.

* * *

Being home was like a dream. An oddly familiar dream where you forget that you ever had a different life behind it.

He learned with his father, with Rabbi Zeller, once with Sholom. He did not see Abulafia again after that first Friday. He watched Esti refuse to sweep and stomp to her room and he helped Adina with her maths. He went to _shul_ on Shabbos and met Danziger outside and he sat between his father and Sholom, following along as they _leined_ sticks swallowing snakes and all the _makkos_.

After _davening_, he stacked the _siddurim_ and _chumashim_ to take back to the shelf, loving their weight in his arms. One by one, he slotted them back into the bookcase. He was almost done when he felt footsteps behind him.

"Oh, Goldstein's back." The voice was caustic. "America couldn't stand you either?"

He turned around slowly. _Meyerson_. His stomach lurched. "I…I have winter holiday."

Meyerson snorted. "Of course. They give you X-mas vacation." He gave Yehuda a long, lingering, speculative glance. "It figures."

Flame tore through his veins, bubbling below the surface of his skin, and fire ripped through his palm. He clenched his fists, holding them behind his back. Flames licked at the inside edge of his hand. He gritted his teeth. _No magic out of school. No magic out of school._

Meyerson laughed. "Oh, you're going to punch me? Now I'm scared."

"Yehuda? Tatty's waiting for you."

Meyerson backed away. Yehuda had never been so glad to see Sholom. He did not open his fists until two blocks away.

"I found him, he was talking to his friends," Sholom told their father.

"He's not—" Yehuda began, and stopped. He had thought of Michael, and that was wrong. Michael was a _goy_. They could never be _real_ friends. Danziger was his friend. Sholom was his friend. This was the right place.

He tried to seal in his memory the sound of _kiddush_, his mother's motions as she lit candles, what it was like to _daven_ with fifty other people and a _sefer Torah_, having your sister serve you the same food that everyone else got. Chicken and potato kugel, _leining_ and _mezuzos_.

Remember the good things. Remember that this is where you really should be.

But all too soon, January fifth crept up on him, and he woke up from the dream.

* * *

**Glossary**

_Goyish_. Non-Jewish.

_Menorah_. Candelabra.

_Kitzur_, abbreviation of _Kitzur Shulchan Aruch_. Book of Jewish law.

_Gemara_. The Talmud.

_X-mas_. An expression used by some Jews to avoid the word "Christ."

_Davened_. Prayed.

_Mincha_. Afternoon prayers.

_Bracha_. Blessing.

_Siddur_. Prayer book.

_Se'if_, literally "article." Topical subdivision in the _Kitzur Shulchan Aruch_.

_Niftar_. Deceased.

_He has no name yet. _It is customary among Ashkenazi Jews to name babies after deceased relatives.

_Ma'ariv_. Evening prayers.

_Bentched_. Said Grace after Meals.

_Shul_. Synagogue.

_Sefer_. Book.

_Shalom aleichem_

_Nittel_. Christmas.

_Ba'al tefila_. Prayer leader.

_Baruch atah, Hashem, oheiv amo Yisrael_. Blessed are you, God, who loves his people Israel.

_Shema Yisrael_, _Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem echad_. Listen Yisrael: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

_Shemone Esrei_, literally "eighteen." Nineteen-blessing prayer central to Jewish liturgy.

_Kollel_. Institute for full-time Talmud study. (Yes, imamother, that was the reference to kollel. Sorry so anticlimactic. Such is the nature of research.)

_Alef-beis_. The Hebrew alphabet.

_Chavruta_, also _chavrusa_, literally "friend." Paired study session.

_Tefachim_. Halachic measurement of a handbreadth.

_Patur_. Exempt.

_Samach-beis_. Page 62.

_Perek_. Chapter.

_Rebbi_. Teacher.

_Mitzvah_. Commandment.

_Chachamim_. Sages.

_Amos_, also _amot_. Halachic measurement of a cubit.

_Pirsum haneis_. Advertising of the miracle.

_Makkos_. The Ten Plagues.

_Chumashim_. Five Books of Moses.

_Goy_. Non-Jew.

_Kiddush_. Blessing over wine.

_Sefer Torah_. Torah scroll.

_Leining_. Cantillation.

_Mezuzos,_ literally "doorposts." Text affixed to a doorway. See Deuteronomy 6:9 and 11:20.

* * *

**Note: **Not _that _kind of "he woke up from the dream." The metaphorical kind. Honestly.


	12. Chapter 12

**JKR owns HP**

**With thanks to** _adamlp65_ for help developing Terry's and Cedric's characters in this chapter.

**To "Rosony":** He's eleven years old!

**To Dina:** Gavriel is not a member of Chabad.

**Disclaimers: **Drink responsibly. I am bad at writing drunk people, please offer your assistance. For the kosher status of strawberries, CYLOR. Opinions expressed are those of the characters. Do not resolve interpersonal conflicts through public humiliation; self-control is a virtue. Jews did not kill Jesus, you're thinking of Pontius Pilate. Non-ritual _ksav Ashuris_ text requires respect, but not burial.

**Updated Disclaimer: **I _know_, nobody would forget about [spoiler holiday]. But plot.

* * *

_Acquire a friend, and judge every man favorably (Avos 1:6)_

* * *

A man stood outside the Leaky Cauldron as the sun came up, holding an envelope and praying for an owl. He couldn't see the pub, but he knew it was there, sandwiched invisibly between the bookstore and the record shop. Time was running out.

At first, his strategy had been to simply ask each passerby, "Excuse me, may I borrow an owl?" But after ten minutes he did not have, he realized the futility of asking random strangers to lend nocturnal birds. The fourth candidate, a smart-looking businessman, looked at him askance. "An _owl_?Go to the pet shop."

He sighed. A man with a cloak fastened around his neck looked promising: the magic people—the _wizards_—always looked rather odd, from what he remembered. "Pardon me, may I borrow an owl?"

"Haven't got one!" the man said, before disappearing between the record shop and bookstore, where he knew the Leaky Cauldron would be if he could see it. Not "Go to the pet shop," he'd said, but "I don't have one." A wizard, then. Emboldened, he approached a grandmotherly woman. "Excuse me, ma'am. Do you have an owl I could borrow?"

"An owl?" the woman said with mild interest. "Why do you need an owl?"

Could he answer? "I've got to send an urgent letter to my son."

"Where?"

She was unperturbed that he was going to send a letter by owl. She was safe. "Hogwarts," he said, hoping he'd gotten the name right.

"Ah, Muggle-born." Understanding dawned. "I don't have an owl on me, but I'll duck into the pub and see if anyone's got one for you, all right?"

He waited, looking at his watch and smiling in spite of himself. It would be _Shacharis_ soon, and he had to get home in time to relieve Esti of babysitting duty and send the children off, but first this. The grandmother emerged with another woman beside her, a birdcage dangling between them, and two minutes later, the owl had launched, talons biting into his forearm and wings flapping in his face like it knew he didn't belong there. He shielded his eyes to watch it go, winging its way north with an envelope flapping in the wind.

The envelope contained a hastily-developed photograph, and five words scrawled in the lopsided letters of a jubilant man who has been awake all night:

_Mazel tov! It's a boy!_

* * *

Two hours later, Yehuda Goldstein dropped his spoon into his breakfast, staring at the letter with delight.

* * *

"What've you got there?" he heard Kevin say. Conversation buzzed around him as though underwater. "Whose baby is that?"

It's a boy! His mother had a boy! He had a new baby brother! He tore his eyes from the tiny swaddled face, dizzy with excitement, almost laughing aloud. "I've got a new brother!" He brandished the photograph proudly. The baby was small and squashed, with blotchy skin and wisps of dark hair and one hand curled into a fist.

"He looks a little funny, mate," Michael said doubtfully. "Are babies supposed to look like that?"

"What's his name?" Morag asked.

"He doesn't have a name yet," Yehuda said. "He was just born! We don't give them names until the…eight days," he finished, unsure how to explain a _bris_.

At Charms, he took notes on the history of fire-related charms yet again, then set to composing a letter home on a scrap of parchment: _Dear Tatty and Mummy, Mazel tov! The baby is cute. How big was he? Who does he look like? What are you going to name him? I hope Eliyohu is not trying to kill him. Love, Yehuda._ There. Done. Oh, no, he couldn't send it on parchment. Even if the owl would bring it to Rabbi Zeller and Rabbi Zeller would bring it to his parents, it had to be on paper—

"Anthony, whatever you're doing cannot possibly be as interesting as the fire-conjuring incantation," Flitwick said. "Would you kindly demonstrate for us?"

That wasn't nice; everyone knew he still couldn't do it. Incendio was a hard one. He walked to the front of the room slowly, lost in thought.

After that Shabbos meal so many weeks ago, he had gone straight to the rabbi to tell him about the fire he had conjured. _I've been having trouble with the fire-making spell at school_, he'd said, _but when Meyerson got me angry it just came without my telling it to. I thought I could come home, but I guess it's still pikuach nefesh, isn't it? _And the look on the rabbi's face had told him he was right. He had not been able to conjure fire since.

Now, in front of Flitwick and the class, he pointed his wand at the window. _Incendio_, he thought. He felt empty. Everyone was looking at him. Why couldn't he do it again? He thought of Meyerson: _America couldn't stand you either?_

"Anthony?"

He heard Flitwick as though from far away. He was trying to find the fire that had ripped down his arm, to force it through the wand, thrust outward in exploding flames, and he stared at the classroom wall and imagined that it was Meyerson's face, Meyerson's eyes sweeping him scornfully, and _of course, they give you X-mas vacation,_ and the wand jerked in his hand.

"_Incendio_!" he shouted. The wand burst into flames.

"_Aguamenti_," Flitwick said, anticlimactically. Yehuda lowered his wand hand shakily and went back to his seat in a daze.

It probably wasn't good that he had conjured fire thinking of Meyerson. Meyerson, after all, had only told the truth: he _was_ strange, he _did_ go to a school full of _goyim _where they gave winter holiday.

Breathe. His brother. He had a baby brother. He waited and waited, sat through diagramming the motions of Switching Spell, laying awake in the quiet dormitory with blankets pulled up to his chin and eyes wide open in the dark, chanted _nezek-tzaar-ripui-sheves-boshes_ under his breath until he had the five damages memorized, studied the properties of bezoars and ground unicorn horn with the other first-years, his knees jiggling under the table wondering how it was even possible to be waitingand_ waiting _for so many days, running back and forth to the common room window to crank it open, stick his head into the snow, and scan the empty gray sky for an owl, and finally, finally, on the seventh afternoon after the letter, the next one came.

He was swaying quietly in the corner when the tapping at the window started.

"Will someone let that owl in?" he heard an annoyed third year complain, "I'm trying to read."

He took three steps back as the owl swooped in and made a beeline (owl-line?) for him, dropping an envelope into his lap. He tore it open eagerly to find a letter, his corrected _halacha _worksheets, a family photograph, and a crayoned drawing featuring purple and orange humanoid scribbles. He read the letter first.

_Dear Yehuda,_

_Mazel tov, mazel tov! Little Yosef has his bris! He was named after Elter Zeide Yossel, Bubby's father, and we hope he grows up to be a big tzaddik like his zeide. Uncle Noach and Tante Freidy were kvatter and Zeidy was sandak. Rabbi Zeller had kriyas shem (he sends his regards). Baby Yosef screamed his head off throughout the whole thing. We missed you very much. Here is a picture we took at the seudah, and a picture Brochie drew for you._

_Keep shteiging,_

_Tatty and Mummy_

He turned his attention to the photograph, where twelve people beamed at him from the _shul_'s _simcha_ hall. He traced his fingers over the faces with a smile.

Michael leaned over his shoulder. "Is that your family, or all your cousins?"

Yehuda laughed. "Just my family—this is my father over here, this next to him is Sholom, he's thirteen. Then that's Esti holding Eliyohu, she's fifteen and he's just two, and my Bubby and Zeidy—my father's parents—are behind her. This, sitting down, is my mother and the new baby. Next to her is Adina, she's nine, the little girl is Brochie, she's five, and this is my Savta—my mother's mother—and Saba Reuven, that's her husband. That's all of us. It's not so many, really, we're only six kids. Well, seven now."

Michael's eyes were huge. "_Seven_? That's _nutters_. Nobody's family has that many kids."

"Ron Weasley in Gryffindor's has got seven," Padma volunteered, and immediately looked so surprised to hear her own voice that she clamped her mouth shut.

"Merlin's beard," Michael said weakly.

"I've got four," said Terry.

"Shove off, Boot," chorused Michael, Yehuda, and Kevin simultaneously, and even Terry laughed. Yehuda wondered what they would say if they knew some kids in his class had more than ten. Yosef, he thought. Esti, Sholom, Yehuda, Adina, Brochie, Eliyohu, Yosef. Yosef Goldstein. He wondered what legal name they had given him to go with it. Looking carefully at his mother's face, he went upstairs to prop the picture up on his nightstand.

* * *

"Yehuda." Someone was shaking him. "Yehuda, wake up."

"Go 'way," he muttered.

"Yehuda, we're going to be late to class!"

He rubbed his eyes. The figure of Kevin swam into clarity over him. He groped for his watch: it was ten minutes to midnight. Class. Right. The homework, a list of planets and stars they had identified last class, was folded neatly on the nightstand.

Astronomy was the strangest class: ten little Ravenclaws yawning, buttoning shirts, as they trooped through a dark and silent common room, down to stairs, to reach yet another staircase that led above the front doors to the astronomy tower. A sudden blast of cold air almost knocked him off his feet as they filed outside. He took a telescope and, teeth chattering with cold, stepped onto the footstool placed there for the first-years' benefit. Next to him, Michael gave a huge yawn. Padma wrapped her robe tightly around her, shivering.

Professor Sinistra had no sympathy, collecting parchments briskly and directing them to turn the telescopes east-southeast. Yehuda squinted, fine-tuning the focus until he could make out the orange splotchy ball that was Mars. He had just looked up that Rashi, back when the homework had been assigned, and it was funny to see the same planet in both Astronomy and _parsha_.

"Use your parchment to sketch out any features you notice," Professor Sinistra said. "If you're having a hard time making out the details,come up and get a red glass for the end of your telescope. Mars is considered a harbinger of death in many cultures. If anyone read ahead, you'll know more—"

"_Mars_," Morag said, "like the Roman god."

"Correct, five points to Ravenclaw. Can anyone give another example?"

He smiled, jerking his eye away from the telescope. "_Ma'adim!_"

"Mr. Goldstein?"

"It's in the…the Bible. Exodus…" He tried to remember the _perek_. "Exodus ten. There's a _p_—a verse that says, 'see there is evil before your faces,' and Rash—one of the comment…ers says that 'evil' refers to Mars, and he says in astrology that it's a star of blood."

"Excellent, take five points," Professor Sinistra said approvingly. "Anyone else?"

Padma muttered something under her breath that sounded like "_Mangala_."

"Nobody?" Professor Sinistra said. "Well, you'll learn more on that in Divination…hopefully. Now, look into your telescope, about halfway between the two caps. Does everyone see the dark patch? That would be the Hourglass Sea. If you haven't found it, ask the person next to you for help."

For the next class, they were going to have to map Venus. Terry tapped him on the shoulder as they were leaving. "You know the Bible by heart?"

He shrugged, uncomfortable. "I remember that—section. I just learned it a few weeks ago."

"That's brilliant," said Terry. "I wish I could do that." And Yehuda thought that maybe Terry wouldn't be such a bad fellow to have around, all things considered.

"We should study it together!"

(Well, maybe only _some_ things considered.)

He wrote to the rabbi to tell him about it, but somehow he thought his parents would be less pleased to hear that he thought he could be friends with a Christian boy. (Maybe.)

So into that letter went his Mishnayos and his Chumashand Rashi, but not the five points they had earned Ravenclaw in Astronomy, and his blandly cheerful letter sanitized of all magic so they could read it aloud to Sholom and Esti and the relatives was dutifully trekked back out to the Owlery to borrow a school owl yet again.

Thankfully, Terry seemed to forget his idea that they learn _parsha_ together. He was a lot easier to like that way.

In middle of a confused dream in which something vaguely thematic and reader-intriguing happened, he woke up. He opened his eyes blearily. It was dark in the dormitory, except for the candle by Terry's bed. He sat up, rubbing his eyes.

"It's still early," Terry whispered. He was buttoning his coat. "Go back to sleep."

Yehuda squinted at him through the fog of sleep. "Where are you going?"

"Church. Go back to sleep."

Yehuda needed no convincing. He pulled the quilt up to his chin and sank back into the dark. Terry blew out the candle, and he heard the dormitory door click shut.

Only in the morning, when Stephen said "Where's Terry?" as they put on their ties, did he look around and feel the space where Terry should have been. "He left in the middle of the night," Yehuda said. "He said he was going to church." Nobody seemed to think this was odd at all. If Goldstein could pray three times a day, the silence seemed to say, Boot was entitled to run off to church whenever he wanted. Yehuda went downstairs to the kitchen to make an unexpected _kashrus _inspection and throw sticks into the fire.

He tucked his Rabbi Zeller paper back under his arm and walked into the Great Hall, joining the last few stragglers. He walked down the Ravenclaw table, to where Kevin and Mandy were earnestly debating whether the Irish Republican Army qualified as terrorists while Padma looked on silently. Michael was ladling porridge into his bowl. Yehuda sat down across from him, his shoulder a careful two inches from Mandy's. He tapped his plate to fill it with salmon and eggswhen the doors to the Great Hall opened, and they paraded in like the conquering army: Cedric, Terry, a sixth-year Gryffindor girl wearing her hair in spikes and a shirt made out of a thick black fishing net, several others he didn't recognize. Terry and one or two Ravenclaws drifted left, while Cedric went to the Hufflepuff table.

"Good morning," Terry said. He slid into the empty seat beside Yehuda and looked around, settling on the bread. Yehuda, pushed over toward Mandy, pulled his shoulders in and tried to make himself narrow on the bench.

"Good morning," Michael said. "Your forehead's dirty."

"I _know_," Terry said haughtily. "It's from church. It's a sign that we belong to Jesus."

Yehuda flinched. "Oh."

"It's from in the Bible—the New Testament," Terry explained, with a sidelong look at Yehuda. "Jesus goes into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights, so Lent is remembering that time that he had in the desert."

"And at the end of it's Easter," Michael piped up.

"Well, yes, but that's at the _end_." Terry looked around, stretching his hand in the general direction of the platters and jugs further down.

"And on Fridays you can't eat meat," Michael said. "Would you like a drink?"

Yehuda reached carefully around Mandy to push the hot chocolate in their direction, but the point was moot. "I can't," Terry said solemnly. "I'm fasting."

"Good luck, then," Yehuda said fervently. This he could understand. He hadn't fasted many times before, but starting next year Pesach he would have to do all of them, and the ones he'd tried for practice had been awful. It reminded him to start a new list of questions, in time for Taanis Esther: _Dear Rabbi Zeller, I know I don't __have__ to fast, because I'm not bar mitzvah, but do I have to hear the megillah? _There was so much to ask: _How do I give shalach manos? Can I give it to a goy? How do I hear Parshas Zachor? _His hand flew across the page, and he looked up just in time to see Terry taking a long sip from a glass of water.

"Wait!" he said. "You're fasting."

"Fasting means giving up something you really like," Terry explained. "Nobody gives up _water_ for Lent."

That, Yehuda thought with disgust, was cheating. If you were fasting you were fasting. "That's not how we do it."

Terry looked interested. "How do you do it?"

"Fasting means you _don't eat_." He wondered how Terry had gotten through eleven or twelve years on the planet without knowing what words meant. "Not things you like and not things you don't like, not food and not water. Skipping your hot chocolate—how's that fasting?"

Terry sniffed.

Yehuda shrugged, returning to his Rabbi Zeller letter. If Terry wanted to say that was fasting, let him believe it. Esti and Sholom, who had moaned and groaned their way through their first fasts because they got headaches, would have been absolutely horrified.

He paused, his pen hovering over the plain Muggle paper. Maybe, it occurred to him suddenly, Terry _did_ remember suggesting they learn together, but knew Yehuda wouldn't like it?

* * *

The letter came back when it was almost Purim.

Yes, Rabbi Zeller wrote, he should hear the _megillah_, preferably the day reading rather than night if you followed the Shaarei Teshuva in _siman_ 687\. It was not necessary for him to fast Taanis Esther, though he was certainly permitted to try. He should hear Parshas Zachor and you could learn out from Parshas Mishpatim (if you looked in Bava Kama) that you have to give _shalach manos_ only to a Jew. He folded the letter with clammy hands and tucked it away.

Padma, her sister, and the Slytherin girl emerged from Flitwick's office, chattering excitedly. He nodded politely and hurried up to the office before he could lose his nerve.

"I need to go away again," he blurted.

"'Tis the season," Flitwick sang under his breath. "Everyone's got a holiday coming up…let me guess, you're celebrating the victory of good over evil by dancing in the streets and chasing each other with colored powder?"

He blinked. "No. It's Purim."

"Very good, very good, and what do you need?"

"I…uh, I have to hear the _meg_—I have to go to a synagogue at night on March 18 and in the morning of March 19. And I have to go away for the weekend on the 14."

Flitwick tapped his chin. "Hm. Anthony, you know we try to make every accommodation for you, but I'm afraid I can't allow an overnight visit at this time. You can miss class on March 18 if you must, but I'm only going to allow you to leave the grounds on the 19."

The words hit him like a punch in the gut. He was lowering his head. He was saying thank you, professor. He was in the stone corridor on the other side of the door, with no memory of saying goodbye—no_ Parshas Zachor_, what was he going to do, another letter would never reach Rabbi Zeller in time—he could always read it to himself, he thought wildly, you could be _yotzei _like that, couldn't you, but he wasn't _bar mitzvah_—

He was slumped against the wall, the letter still folded in his hands. They had all known this was going to happen, eventually. Professor McGonagall had told Totty and Mummy they would let him do his _Yiddishkeit_ things, but really, how could you trust _goyim_ to know what something like that meant? There was a reason Totty had cried when he said goodbye in the train station.

He slid to the floor, resting his head on his knees. The stone was hard against his back. This was what happened to everyone who went to a _goyish_ school. Every story thought they would be different, and this was how it started.

* * *

Taanis Esther was lonely. In real life, not-in-Hogwarts, Sholom and Esti always complained about fasting all the way home from _megillah_, so he knew you had to wait all day and _lein_ before eating, and it was a long, long day. He hadn't gotten to hear Parshas Zachor, he'd forgotten to eat a bigger supper on Tuesday night, and McGonagall took a point from Ravenclaw after catching him daydreaming. Double Transfiguration _and _fasting—it just wasn't fair.

But it wasn't their fault, he told himself resolutely. They weren't Jewish. They didn't know. It was his fault, for being different.

After Potions, he went to take a nap. His head was in a fog, and he hadn't heard a word of class. He'd have to get the notes from Terry later. Somehow he dragged himself to the dormitory, up the last few steps, and curled up in bed, fully clothed.

"Yehuda, are you coming to dinner?"

How long had it been? He rubbed his eyes and saw Kevin at the door, dusk glinting through the window. "No, I'm fasting."

"All right." The door closed. He drifted off again.

Michael came in after dinner and woke him up. His mind still fuzzy, Yehuda glanced out the window to be sure it was dark enough. Megillas Esther wasn't in Navi, because it wasn't a _haftarah_, but it was in the Tanach somewhere, because his father always just flipped to the back of a Chumash instead of using a real _megillah_ with pictures.

"_Vayehi b'yemei Achashveiro-o-osh…hu-u-u Achashveiro-o-osh, hamolech meHodu v'ad Kush, she-e-e-eva v'esrim u'meah medina_…" He trailed off. He couldn't remember the tune, so he just read it aloud. When he got to _perek gimmel_, he slowed suddenly, looking around frantically between words for something to use as a _grogger_, but there was nothing. He was up to the part where Esther goes to Achashverosh when Terry walked in.

"_Vayoshet hamelech l'Esther es sharvit hazahav asher b'yado_—"

"Yehuda, do you want me to show you what we did today?"

Were you allowed to talk during _megillah_? Nobody ever did. He smiled and pointed at the Chumash.

"Oh, sorry," Terry said, but he made no move to go anywhere. He simply stood there, holding his cauldron. Was he going to stay and listen? He didn't understand Hebrew anyway, so what was the point? Yehuda shrugged and kept going. "_Vatikrav Esther vatiga b'rosh hasharvit_._ Vayomer la hamelech_…"

By the time he got to "_doreish tov l'amo v'dover shalom l'chol zaro_," his throat was dry. He rasped out the ending _brachos_, made a heartfelt _shehakol_ and drank some water from the pitcher next to his bed. The fast was over.

"_Ah freilichen Purim_," he muttered, going into the bathroom to wash for bread.

Terry cleared his throat. "Are you done?"

"Yeah," he said, swallowing a half-stale bite.

Terry pulled his mortar out of the nightstand and dumped the cauldron on his bed. A small pile of ingredients spilled out: snake fangs, wolfsbane, dead bugs he had read about with wings like a helicopter attached to the tops of their shiny blue heads. "You don't have any notes from Potions today, so I know you weren't listening. You're lucky Snape didn't take points. But come over here so I can show you what you missed."

Kevin came in as they were counting out billywig stings, and Stephen and Michael came in minutes later. Michael held the cauldron steady as Yehuda attempted to stir clockwise, holding his wand by the tips of two fingers so he could reach inside. "_Clockwise_!" Stephen cautioned. "He _is_ going clockwise, you're just facing backward," Terry retorted, and with all of them kneeling around Terry's bed, elbows propped on the bedspread and laughing, he could almost believe it was Purim after all. It didn't have to be his family he was laughing with, did it?

In the morning, he ran down to the kitchen and explained what he needed to the solemn, wide-eyed house-elves. Upstairs, he carefully packaged the bread, grapes, and a flask of soup and tied them together with ribbon. "Part of the holiday is giving each other food," he explained over his shoulder to Terry. "Everyone has to give food to their friends. Usually it's candy, but I don't have any of that here."

"You can give it to me!" Michael offered.

He shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortably. "I, uh, I have to go soon," he mumbled. He quickly left the dormitory. He would have rather left with his head up, after one last long look around the room, but when you had to leave, you had to leave. _Shalach manos_, _matanos l'evyonim_, what else?

He went to Flitwick's office. Snape was there, an old brown shoe was on the table, and Flitwick was as bright as ever, despite having kept Yehuda from hearing _Parshas Zachor_—_it's not his fault_, Yehuda told himself tiredly. "Hello," he said. Snape nodded at him curtly.

And again they took their places around Flitwick's desk, Yehuda hooking one finger through the shoelaces, bracing himself for the jerk. Again they were hurtling through wind and blur, and again Yehuda landed on his knees in the dirt. "Ah!"

Snape didn't walk him to the door this time. Yehuda looked over his shoulder, but he was just standing there, watching from down the lane, so Yehuda walked at first, then, unable to contain himself, broke into a run. He knocked on the door, hearing a Miami Boys Choir tape at full blast inside. He knocked louder. Finally he rang the bell.

The _rebbetzin_ opened it—of course she wasn't really a _rebbetzin_, but it was sort of the same thing, and why did he always have to _think_ so much about everything. "Yehuda! How nice to see you. We've been wondering when you'd be back!"

He kept a tight grip on his soup and grapes as he followed her into the dining room. There was confetti scattered in every corner, beer bottles on the floor, and whiskey bottles all over the table. Many, many whiskey bottles. Mrs. Bronstein followed his eyes. "Don't mind that. Gavriel and the other _mashgichim_ brought over samples from the factories. We had quite a crowd last night."

"Crowd?"

"A Purim party, for the Moray kids. Today should be calmer." With a flourish, she handed him a plastic-wrapped package of candy and crisps. He could see jelly worms through the cellophane. He hadn't had jelly worms in months.

"_Ah freilichen Purim_!" Rabbi Bronstein's voice rang out. He wore a yellow and purple jester's hat and was carrying a garbage bag full of beer bottles across the dining room.

"Uh, this is for you," Yehuda said. He held out his package.

"_Shkoyach_!" the rabbi said. He put the garbage bag down. "Thank you for coming. Nechama, what's our Purim schedule for this _tzaddik_?"

"We should get a _minyan_ for the _megillah_, Aaron was the designated driver, he said he'd come by." Mrs. Bronstein kicked open a metal folding chair, lining them in rows in front of the dining room table. "Did you tell the Wallins to come for _megillah_? I think we might have scared them off last night—"

"Yeah, yeah, of course," Rabbi Bronstein said. "What's the count now?"

It was nine, if you didn't count the girls. Eitan and Gavriel from Sukkos were there, then there was a knock and three boys from the college called Aaron, Jonathan, and Ben came in, there was a girl named Jessica who wore trousers, a scruffy-bearded teenage boy in a suit and jacket named Levi Yitzchak, and a confused-looking father and son in jeans. Mrs. Bronstein handed him the same purple illustrated _megillah_ he used at home, somebody turned off the blasting "B'siyata Dishmaya" in the corner and gave him a metal _grogger_. The rabbi was unrolling the _megillah_ on the dining room table. Yehuda leaned forward, admiring the beautiful spiky letters, shining jet-black on the parchment.

"It's just a _megillah_," Gavriel said with amusement, watching him.

"I was just looking at the writing," Yehuda said shyly. "I want to be a _sofer_. I practice."

"Practice? You better be careful; you know you're not supposed to write just anything you want in _ksav Ashuris_. It's got _kedusha_, you know."

"Really?" He thought of the _alef-beis_ practice sheets in his nightstand drawer, his family's names inked in careful black _ksav_. "Where does it say? I mean—I believe you, I just want to look it up and see."

"Yeah, check in the Aruch Hashulchan," Gavriel said indifferently. He looked at Yehuda and seemed to reconsider. "Actually, I think Zalman has one. I'll show you after—"

Zalman cleared his throat and banged on the dining room table. "_Rabbosai_!"

Silence fell.

"_Vayehi b'yemei Achashveiro-o-osh…hu-u-u Achashveiro-o-osh, hamolech meHodu v'ad Kush, she-e-e-eva v'esrim u'meah medina_…"

Yehuda followed along in the illustrated _megillah_, swinging his legs back and forth. Hearing the tune made it all real. It was the oddest place he had ever heard the _megillah_, not sitting beside his father in _shul_ and hearing the roar of noisemakers and stomping. When they got to _perek gimmel_, the first mention of Haman's name, Yehuda gave an enthusiastic whirr of the _grogger_ and stamped his feet, but he was the only one, besides for Mrs. Bronstein who gave a polite ladylike toe-tap on the floor.

"_Ki-i-i Mordechai haYehudi-i-i mishneh lamelech Achashveirosh, vegadol laYehudim veratzui lechol echav, doreish tov l'amo-o-o vedover shalom lechol zaro-o-o!_" Zalman made the ending _brachos_, took a quick drink, and immediately launched into a loud Shoshanas Yaakov.

Shoshanas Yaakov! He knew there was _something_ he'd forgotten last night. He sang along, swinging his legs, Gavriel swaying in his seat and tapping on the cover of his _megillah_. "_Shekol kovecha lo yeivoshu velo yikolmu lanetzach_…_lanetzach, kol hachosim bach_!" Levi Yitzchak sprang from his seat and grabbed Zalman's hand, and Zalman grabbed Ben's and Ben held out his hand to Yehuda, and they all joined hands in a line to dance around the table in the bare dining room. "_Vegam Charvona, zachur latov_!" They finished, laughing and out of breath, and then everyone turned their folding chairs to face the table.

No pitiful vegetables and eggs, Yehuda noted with satisfaction, this was a proper _seudah_. The very first thing everyone did was go into the kitchen and wash, and there were real rolls, still warm from the oven, garlic and onion bread, a basket of different-colored small _challos _in the center of the table.

Eitan knew the father in jeans; he worked in packaging at one of the distilleries where Eitan was _mashgiach_. Eitan showed him a picture of his new baby and they passed it around. He could tell from looking that Eitan's baby was much older than Baby Yosef, but Yehuda didn't dare mention that he had a new baby too. What if someone knew his family, and then everyone found out that he wasn't really in America? The college boys and girl talked about their teachers. Eitan said a _dvar Torah _over salmon wrapped in puff pastry. It was a regular _frum_ _dvar Torah_, except that Eitan said _taf_ instead of _saf_ all the time even though he wasn't Sephardi. When he was done, Yehuda got up to bring the dirty dishes to the kitchen. At the edge of the doorframe, he stopped.

"Grapes, bread, and soup, Zalman!" Mrs. Bronstein said agitatedly. "Does he even have kosher food there? What little boy gives bread and grapes for _shalach manos_?"

He wasn't little, and where was he supposed to get wafer rolls and a miniature wine bottle and cellophane in the middle of Scotland, anyway? "Where should I put these?"

"Oh—Yehuda!" Mrs. Bronstein jumped back. "I'll take those, thank you. You can sit."

The men started to drink after the brisket. Zalman started with a whole cup, Eitan just took a shot before passing the bottle to the college kids—"I'll take a nap later," he said. Yehuda wasn't allowed to drink, because he was too young. Even Sholom, at home, wasn't allowed. When his father got drunk, he would say the same _dvar Torah_ over and over, and tell his mother she was beautiful, which always made Yehuda feel awkward. The college boys, though, were soon dissolved in laughter that was wild and a little frightening, like it had lost its leash somehow.

"Zalman, I want you to give me a _bracha_," Gavriel said, very seriously. "You have so much _mesiras nefesh_ to live here, even if you're a Lubavitcher. I wish I had such a big _zechus_. Can you give me a _bracha_, Zalman?"

"Oy, be careful, _tzaddik_!" Zalman cried. Ben the college boy called had gotten up to wash his hands, but took two steps and bounced off the bookcase. Aaron and Jessica laughed uproariously. Ben shook his head like a dog coming out of the bath and teetered toward the kitchen.

Yehuda wanted to eat everything. He skipped the chicken cutlets, because they were coated in an odd green sauce his mother didn't make, but he took some of everything else: tiny grains of rice speckled with mushrooms, Caesar salad, mashed potatoes with a crust, fried peppers mixed with onions. Mrs. Bronstein served _kreplach_ in soup, which Yehuda, Gavriel, and Levi Yitzchak ate, but no one else touched.

"The food is delicious," Eitan said.

"The food is like a restaurant," Ben announced, and the other college kids all started to laugh again. Yehuda didn't know what was so funny; maybe it was a joke you only understood if you weren't _frum_. They all laughed so easily, as though someone had let go of the string mooring them to earth. Aaron was laughing so hard his face turned red. Purim away from home was very odd, he decided. Now, what was he going to bring back to Hogwarts for later?

Mrs. Bronstein brought out plates of dessert—apples, melon, grapes, strawberries, and chocolate, muffins, biscuits, walnuts. Zalman applauded and drummed on the table, and the college boys joined in.

"_Shkoyach_!" Zalman cried. "I don't know how you do it, it _mamash_ looks like a fruit salad. You should be in charge of all the fruit in the world." Mrs. Bronstein smiled tolerantly at her drunk husband as she set the platters down. Yehuda leaned forward to see what was on them.

"Zalman, give me a _bracha_!" Gavriel pestered.

Yehuda's fingers hovered over the platter, deciding. He could take muffins back to the dormitory, but fruit might spoil. He went for the grapes, spreading a napkin over the muffins for later.

"You should be a _tzaddik _and a _groisse talmid chacham_!" Zalman said. He banged a fist on the table. "_Rabbosai, _are you all listening? You should all be _tzaddikim_! Or _tzidkaniyos_!"

Yehuda looked up. Gavriel was crying, tears coursing down his cheeks. "I'm going to be a _talmid chacham_ even if I'm not in _yeshivah_. I'm going to be a _tzaddik_. Zalman, I want to be a _tzaddik_. Zalman, you can be a _tzaddik_ even if you're not in _yeshivah_, can't you?"

Yehuda froze. Zalman locked eyes across the table with him. "Yeah," he said, but he wasn't talking to Gavriel. "You can be a _tzaddik_ even if you're not in _yeshivah_."

That night, as Stephen and Kevin argued over whether Alohomorawent right-to-left or left-to-right, Yehuda sat cross-legged on his bed and smugly sorted the remains of the day. Chocolate wafers, walnut muffins, bon bons,jelly worms, saltwater taffy, and crisps had never tasted so sweet.

* * *

He was _davening mincha_ in the common room when it finally happened.

Well, it happened, but it shouldn't have, but had their positions been reversed he felt sure Terry would have done the same. Not that that made any difference. He was wrong, but nobody else seemed to think that way, and he felt horribly guilty when he thought about it.

"Easter?" he heard Hilliard ask. "Easter, anyone?"

"Oh, Goldstein'll want to go." Terry's voice was unmistakable. "Put him down on the list."

Yehuda tensed, but kept his head pointed at the _siddur_. The Hebrew swam in front of him.

"Goldstein?" Hilliard said blithely. He heard a quill scratching. "All right."

His concentration gone now, he hurtled through _V'leYerushalayim_ and _Modim_ and _Shalom Rav_, took three steps back, and whirled around to see Terry in an armchair calmly reading a book. "Why do you think you can put me on the list for Easter _anything_ without asking me? Who do you think you are?"

Terry got to his feet. His voice was the voice of a patient adult. "But you _needed_ to. Easter—"

Heads were turning in their direction, conversations stopping. He had spoken too loudly, but he was too angry to care, pent-up fury of seven months avalanching down on the Christian face in front of him. "I don't need any of it! Why do you think I need it? I keep _telling_ you I don't want to have anything to do with your Christian stuff! And you're always trying to force it on me! What do I have to do to get you to leave me alone?"

Terry looked stricken, his face white. He bolted for the common room door. It shut behind him with a _clunk_ and there was silence, eyes and upturned faces all around the room staring at Yehuda—Mandy, Marcus, Penelope, Morag.

He flushed, heat rising up the back of his neck. The _siddur_ was still clutched in his hand.

Marcus approached him slowly, arms outstretched in the manner of soothing a cornered animal. "He signed you up for Easter holiday, that's all," he said in an undertone. "I suppose you missed the announcement. It's only a week, but most people aren't going because exams come right afterward. I guess Terry figured you would want to." He looked Yehuda up and down. "I thought the story was that Jews killed Jesus. You celebrate that he rose from the dead?"

"I didn't kill anyone," Yehuda said, confused. "What's a rose from the dead?"

"Never mind. You can go after Robert to take your name off the list if you want, but if you don't mind going home, I'd just give it a rest."

He _didn't _mind going home—it would be lovely to see everyone again—it was just that Terry had decided he wanted something to do with Easter, Terry shlepping him into those Christian things again. _You believe in the Old Testament, don't you? _He opened his _siddur_ again to say _Aleinu_, but it stung. There was no mispronounced, over-cheerful "_ay-men_" after his _bracha_ that Friday night. Terry left the dormitory as soon as he came in.

"Don't worry about it, mate," Michael said. "It's about time you gave it to him."

And Ravenclaw House seemed to agree. Kevin, Stephen, Morag, Su, and Mandy were giving Terry dirty looks in the hallway, and at lunch Terry ate by himself at the end of the table. But everyone was very polite to Yehuda, opening doors for him and giving a wide radius of respectful silence around his _mincha _andmaking sure he had his special food, and he didn't quite know what to make of it. Terry avoided him completely.

Alohomora, as it turned out, was a backward-S hand motion with the intent to open the door. Yehuda discovered this as he paged through _The Standard Book of Spells_, making up work yet again. He always seemed to be making up work. Now, he practiced, getting up to lock the dormitory door and Alohomora-ing it, over and over, backward-S after backward-S until his arm ached and Michael banged on the wall outside yelling "Goldstein, open the door!"

"Sorry!" He opened it. "I was practicing the Unlocking Charm and it wasn't working."

"You have to have the right intent," Michael said. "That's probably where you went wrong. Flitwick said to ignore the intent in the bookbecause it won't work for first years—except Granger, probably. Where are my notes? I'll find it for you."

In the olden days, they had used spells that smashed the door to splinters or blasted a hole where the lock had been. Those got the door open, but they didn't _unlock_ it, specifically. "Think bolt slide back," Michael had written. "Not just open door."

Michael's handwriting wasn't as neat as Terry's, Yehuda noticed, but Terry hadn't offered, of course. Even a few days later, when he went outside and dug a hole in the ground on the lake shore to bury his _ksav Ashuris_ inside, Terry did not follow him outside asking a thousand questions and babbling about Christians burying their crosses in the dirt to celebrate Halloween or some other such nonsense. In fact, Terry didn't even notice him going. It was nice, in a way: he wasn't self-conscious, he didn't need to wonder if the _goy _was analyzing everything he did as something exotic and Jewish, he wasn't stared at, he…_missed_ Terry?

What had he done?

He sat at the lunch table, next to Michael and a careful three inches from Mandy, and put ordinary Muggle pen to ordinary Muggle paper. _Dear Rabbi Zeller—_

He looked at Terry, sitting at the end of the table, unsure how to phrase it. _Is it a chillul Hashem if I yelled at another boy in front of everyone_…but that made it sound like Terry was completely innocent. _Is it a chillul Hashem if I got so angry at what another boy did that I embarrassed him_…still. He scratched it out and tried again. _Is it a chillul Hashem if I was just trying to get him to stop doing his X-tianity things so I yelled at him and embarrassed him_—

He stopped and shook his head. This was silly. He didn't need the rabbi for this. Terry was angry, he had embarrassed him in front of the whole Ravenclaw, it was a big _chillul Hashem_, and he had to apologize. He slid off the bench, Michael's eyebrows raised in confusion, walked down the floor, the chatter of the Great Hall throbbing in his ears, and stopped at the far end.

Terry looked up. He saw Yehuda. His head snapped back down.

Yehuda sat down. "I'm sorry I yelled," he said quickly, before he could lose his nerve.

"Shove off," Terry muttered. His eyebrows knit together angrily. "I was just trying to _help _you."

Yehuda seized up with terrible, irrational fear that he could not name. "I don't want you to help me. Ever."

"Don't you think I've worked that out by now?" Terry scoffed. "You made it quite clear. Shove off, _Anthony_. Go study Talmud or something."

March wore on and became April. Michael still shared his table at Potions and Herbology, but their dormitory became full of terrible silences. Sometimes when he came up the stairs he could hear Kevin and Stephen talking, but they always shut right up when he walked in. Yehuda took to waking early, while it was still dark out and the other boys were just lumps under their sheets. He would read for a while in the common room, then daven as soon as he could see light from the window, and make his escape downstairs before any of the other first-years emerged.

One Sunday he woke up to Stephen brushing his teeth in the bathroom, Michael buttoning his shirt, Kevin reading—and Terry's bed empty, sheets folded neatly. He wasn't at breakfast and he didn't come to class. The same group that had gone to church on the dirty forehead day came into lunch late, but Terry didn't volunteer any explanation. He sat by himself at the end of the table again.

The next morning, he made his way down to the kitchen to make a surprise inspection and make the fire into _bishul Yisrael_. It was so quiet he felt like he hadn't spoken aloud in years. The halls were just starting to wake—there were perhaps three or four students awake. He came down the first-floor corridor, mentally reviewing his Charms essay. It was still his weakest subject, although Flitwick had told him that unicorn hair wands were supposed to be better-suited to Charms work—he still couldn't master Incendio, and it was making him nervous about everything else. He could do it, he told himself. He just had to _think_ he could.

He passed by the library just as Robert emerged, holding a pile of books and looking tired. He was staring into space, but jerked to attention when he saw Yehuda. "Good morning," he said, falling into step beside him. He was so tall he had to almost trip over his feet trying to match Yehuda's pace.

"Good morning," Yehuda said, trying not to sound confused.

"Where are you headed so early?"

"The kitchen…" He trailed off, hoping the prefect would understand, and he wouldn't have to explain.

"Oh, that's right. I've been meaning to ask you if it's worked out, what with all your holidays and your special food—Yehuda?"

Yehuda stared in horror.

Pesach! Oh, no, Pesach! How could he have forgotten? He blurted something to Robert and ran the other way. A thousand questions for the rabbi stampeded through his mind as he scrambled up the stairs, burst through the dormitory door, yanked open his drawer and fumbled for the precious calendar. Not bothering to sit, he ran his finger frantically down the page, searching for _Rosh Chodesh Nisan_,counting one week—two weeks…He reached _tes-vav Nisan_, and moaned aloud.

"All right, Yehuda?" Kevin asked, pushing aside his curtain.

Yehuda didn't answer. He stared at the calendar aghast, feeling kicked in the stomach, frozen.

_I was just trying to help you…_

Easter vacation began on Erev Pesach.

* * *

**Glossary**

_Shacharis_. Morning prayers.

_Bris_. Circumcision ceremony.

_Pikuach nefesh_. Endangerment of life.

_X-mas_. An expression used by some Jews to avoid the word "Christmas."

_Goyim_. Non-Jews.

_Nezek, tzaar, ripui, sheves, boshes_. Damage, pain, medical bills, loss of wages, shame. The five types of restitution in the Jewish criminal code.

_Halacha_. Jewish law.

_Elter Zeide_. Great-grandfather.

_Tzaddik_. Righteous man.

_Zeide, Zeidy_. Grandpa.

_Tante_. Aunt.

_Kvatter._ Honored with bringing a baby to his circumcision.

_Sandak_. Honored with holding a baby during his circumcision.

_Kriyas shem_. Reading of the name.

_Seudah_. Festive meal.

_Shteiging_. Hitting the books.

_Shul_. Synagogue.

_Simcha_ _hall_. Social hall.

_Rashi_. Medieval commentary on the Torah and centerpiece of Jewish study.

_Parsha_. Weekly Torah portion.

_Ma'adim_, literally "turning red." Mars.

_Perek_. Chapter.

_Mangala_. Mars.

_Mishnayos. _The Mishna.

_Chumash_. The Five Books of Moses.

_Kashrus_. Jewish dietary laws.

_Taanis Esther_. A commemorative fast on the day before Purim.

_Bar mitzvah_, literally "son of the commandments." Age thirteen, at which Jewish boys become adults responsible to keep the law.

_Megillah_. The Book of Esther.

_Shalach manos_, corruption of _mishloach manos_, literally "sending portions." Gifts of food or drink sent on Purim.

_Goy_. Non-Jew.

_Parshas Zachor_. An obligatory reading on the Saturday before Purim.

_Be yotzei_. Fulfill one's obligation.

_Yiddishkeit_. Judaism.

_Goyish_. Non-Jewish.

_Megillah_, literally "scroll." The book of Esther.

_Lein_. Chant.

_Parshas Zachor_. Chapter of remembrance, a mandatory reading the week before Purim.

_Navi_. Prophets.

_Haftarah_. Weekly selection from the Prophets.

_Tanach_. The Hebrew Bible.

_Vayehi b'yemei Achashveirosh, hu Achashveirosh hamolech meHodu v'ad Kush, sheva v'esrim u'meah medina_. It was in the days of Achashveirosh, he is Achashveirosh who ruled from India to Ethiopia, over 127 provinces (Esther 1:1).

_Perek gimmel_. Chapter three.

_Grogger_. Noisemaker.

_Vayoshet hamelech l'Esther es sharvit hazahav asher b'yado, vatikrav Esther vatiga b'rosh hasharvit. Vayomer la hamelech_. And the king extended to Esther the golden scepter in his hand, and Esther approached and touched the end of the scepter, and the king said to her…

_Doreish tov l'amo v'dover shalom l'chol zaro_. Who sought good for his nation and spoke peace to all his children.

_Brachos_. Blessings.

_Shehakol_, literally "that everything." Blessing over drinks.

_Ah freilichen Purim_. Happy Purim.

_Matanos l'evyonim_. Gifts to the poor.

_Rebbetzin_. Wife of a rabbi.

_Mashgichim_. Kashrus supervisors.

_Shkoyach_, corruption of _yeyasher kochacha_, literally "May [God] straighten your strength." Idiomatically, "good job."

_Minyan_. Quorum of 10 men.

_B'siyata Dishmaya_. With the help of heaven. 1991 Avraham Fried song.

_Sofer_. Ritual scribe.

_Ksav Ashuris_, literally "Assyrian script."

_Kedusha_. Holiness.

_Alef-beis_. Hebrew alphabet (note the similarity to the word _alphabet_).

_Ksav_. Text.

_Rabbosai_. Gentleman.

_Shul_. Synagogue.

_Ki Mordechai haYehudi mishneh lamelech Achashveirosh, vegadol laYehudim veratzui lechol echav, doreish tov l'amo vedover shalom lechol zaro_. For Mordechai the Jew was viceroy to King Achashveirosh, a great man of the Jews and beloved by all his brothers, seeking good for his nation and speaking peace to all his descendants.

_Shoshanas Yaakov_, literally "The Rose of Jacob." A song after reading the _megillah_.

_Seudah_. Festive meal.

_Challos_. Braided bread.

_Kreplach_. Dumplings.

_Talmid chacham_. Torah scholar.

_Yeshivah_. Jewish school.

_Davening_. Praying.

_Mincha_. Afternoon prayer.

_V'leYerushalayim, Modim, _and _Shalom Rav_, literally "To Jerusalem," "Give Thanks," and "Abundant Peace." The three final blessings of the _Amidah._

(_Amidah._ The central prayer.)

_Siddur_. Prayer book.

_Bracha_. Blessing.

_Chillul Hashem_. Desecration of God's name, typically through a Jew's bad behavior.

_Pesach_. Passover.

_Rosh Chodesh Nisan_. First day of the month of Nisan.

_Tes-vav Nisan_. The 15th of Nisan.

_Erev Pesach_. Passover eve.

Probably more stuff I missed. Figure it out from context or Google.

* * *

**Note: **I'm alive, I promise.


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